Burning in Obscurity
by FluffleNeCharka
Summary: Ingrid left the Patrol without warning. Upon return she finds that X has become corrupt, with familiar foes to blame. Although she is now unrecognizable, she can't leave them to their doom. The question is, if she's going to save them, who will save her?
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: READ THIS. Though I ran out of summary space, there are some details you should know. This is an Invader Zim and, um, something else crossover. (I could tell you, but that would spoil a later part of the fic.) However, you don't need to be familiar with either series to really understand this, because it's mostly centered around Ingrid. And yes, there is a reason this is in the romance section. There will later be some FillmoreIngrid in this fic, but it'll be a LONG haul before we get to that, for obvious reasons. Hopefully you'll bare with me until then.

With that said, I don't own anything. Enjoy the fic.

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It was a dark and stormy day at the Safety Patrol, and Ingrid Third was bored.

This sentiment was shared by most of her peers. Catching up on paper work was not fun, just something they had to do. Currently, Fillmore was filling out forms at lightning speed while Ingrid read and corrected them roughly twice as fast. Tehama was organizing all the files on her computer into various folders while Anza helped Danny with his boxes upon boxes of uncategorized photos. The radio was on in Vallejo's office, faint music mixing with the sounds of rain and lightning. On a cold day it might have been miserable, but today it was warm outside, and they had the window open. The whole scene seemed homely and familiar to Ingrid.

She realized, as she continued in her proofreading, that this was closest to a routine she'd had in a long time. With her disciplinary problems and her father's job swappings, she'd never stayed in one place for very long. Except before her mother died. That had been a long time ago, though. Now she was settled in for the first time in years. Familiar faces, tasks she knew how to do by heart, in a place she knew better than her own home. The moment was so common now that it was boring. Dear lord, how long had it been since _that_ had happened?

Then she paused, absentmindedly having done part of her corrections in the wrong language. Cringing, glad no one had caught her in her lapse, she redid it. Huh, that was odd. It had been a long time since she'd made that error. Hearing a gasp, she instinctively hunched over her paper, glancing up. Tehama was staring at her.

"Ingrid, your first name is-"

"Don't even think it," the black clad girl returned sharply. "It took a lot of bribery just to get Folsom off my back. I don't even want to know what it would take to get the school to shut up."

Tehama grinned back at her. "Still, wow. What language is it from? My mom's big into baby names and stuff, but I'm not so good at guessing."

Ingrid immediately thought of what it would be, had it followed normal naming conventions. "I think it's Korean. I'm not sure, though. My dad would probably know…"

Fillmore gave her a look that was part smile, part questioning. "How come I never knew about your secret Korean first name?"

"You didn't ask."

"Mmm-hmm," he murmured, going back to work. "Well, see if I ever tell you my middle name."

"It's Dilbert," Tehama announced, and the room burst into laughter.

Ingrid smiled warmly at her partner. Well, see if he ever lived it down. The next time he got uptight, she knew exactly what she was going to call him. Chuckling, she went back to the paperwork, which no longer seemed boring. In the warm, cozy room, surrounded by good friends, it was impossible to bored. In fact, for the first time in a while, the feeling that overwhelmed her senses was pure contentment. Music, rain, and Dilbert – what more could she want? When Fillmore gave her an annoyed look, she burst out giggling, which made him groan. Oh, yeah. This was the life.

Too bad it couldn't last.

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The move was inevitable.

Ingrid wasn't stupid. She couldn't deny reality. She knew it was coming. But she didn't want it to. She didn't want to leave this place. These people were so welcoming, so loving. She had made friends here, lots of them, and she didn't want to leave them. There were finally people who understood her. Her moments of weirdness, her Abe Lincoln lunchbox, even her photographic memory was appreciated here. No one ever thought of her as useless here. Starting from Fillmore and gradually expanding to others, people thought of her as useful, special, part of a team. Those last few words had never been used to describe her in her entire life.

She frowned. It wasn't just that, though. It had more to do with the fact that she felt like she cared for someone in return. In her lifetime, more than a few people had cared about her. They did for her intelligence, or out of sympathy, or because it was required. Fillmore was the first person to ever care about things like justice and what was fair. Then he had exposed her to a world of people who cared about those things. Those concepts had been so dead to her they didn't even matter anymore. Here people wanted to do the world some good, and strangely enough, she felt protective of them. The whole Safety Patrol was like a family to her. They took in wayward and downtrodden people, and built them up to be something great. Not for profit, or because they had to, but because they wanted to. Out of the goodness of their _hearts_. The very idea made her want to protect them, help them, be a hero like them. They were precious. Fillmore most of all.

Yet she hadn't told them. She couldn't. The words wouldn't come when she tried, not after she found out where she was moving. The time never seemed right. She couldn't break up warm, fuzzy moments like yesterday to monger pity. Ingrid considered telling Fillmore and letting him break the news to everyone. She knew she had to tell someone. If she just disappeared, he would never forgive her. If she didn't, that meant facing at least one of them. Anza was out of question, because he lived clear on the other side of town. Tehama was busy tonight visiting her grandmother at the hospital. Vallejo would be furious at her – he wasn't even an option. The rest of the Patrol was officially on off duty today. She couldn't even contact them over the walkie-talkies. It had to be Fillmore. He might be furious, he might be depressed, he might never forgive her, but she couldn't lay around every night wallowing in self pity.

Sitting up on her bed, she pulled out the walkie-talkie, and made the inevitable call.

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The entire city was just like she remembered it.

A thick smog coated the air, making the sky red and orange during the day and eerily purple at night. The people were always awake and always moving. Night time streets seemed more crowded than daytime streets here. Sirens of police and ambulances raged constantly. The thriving Goth scene flocked to the mall to buy fashionable clothes and sneer at the equally prominent preppy kids. Amidst this, crime thrived, from bootlegging to outright robbery. And no matter how much the police tried, nothing ever changed. Muggings happened on the street, gangsters ran around school with knives and their gang colors on full display, and regulations were just suggestions, be it the law or the school rules.

Ingrid didn't like it. It was just so familiar she couldn't fight it. This was her. This was who she was. This place had made her, taken her from a weak, crying girl who missed her mommy and made her a rebel with a cold streak. The problem was that after a while she became so cold it had taken years to defrost her. Now that she was back, she was already becoming apathetic. Someone had been shot on her way to school the first day. She didn't spare it more than a curious glance. That was the epitome of this industrial nightmare: die, live, never care.

By the end of the first year, she knew there was no hope for it. The city infected her like a virus. She was cold, cruel and uncaring. She hurt the school system that had broken and remade her, as if it would do her any good. She stayed up til all hours, knowing here the teachers were inattentive and she could get straight A's and sleep through class. Here there were no rewards for goodness. Failing students and Ingrid were treated the same. Nameless, worthless, never remembered. Not that it mattered much, since she was back to her old life and her old nemesis. He hadn't changed either, other than a moment of sullen silence when his other enemy died. A death that, though it was her best friend here, barely made her even pause. X's Ingrid would have cried and spent hours on the phone with Fillmore. But she wasn't Ingrid anymore. She didn't cry anymore.

This was all his fault. His rejection had reminded her why that this was a good idea. It was all coming back to her. This was all she could be. Theft, arson, skipping school, and fighting aliens. Searching for ghosts. Chasing vampires. The familiarity was not warm and comforting, as it had been at X. There were no good people fighting for justice and fairness here. There was only evil and lesser evils. Gray and black instead of white and black. Though she had fought to escape it, it seemed the corrupt nature of her hometown could not be escaped. She was not cut out for the life of a good and studious Safety Patroller. She wasn't even capable of sticking up for people without Fillmore to be her morale officer. This was his fault. If he hadn't stopped speaking to her, she wouldn't have realized just how suited to the dark side she actually was.

Not that she was evil, she reassured herself. She wasn't even bad. She just wasn't good. She wasn't clean. She was fighting greater evils, evils that didn't exist at X but ran rampant here. Here no one could remain morally upright for very long. It was easier to become part of a lying, gossiping, filthy crowd of near clones. Fighting the paranormal madness in this city was the closest she could ever come to being her X self. The people here were just too far gone to save. Maybe she was, too. But she'd be dead soon. Paranormal investigators didn't last very long here. Nothing did. Everything was disposable, even people.

Not that it mattered, given she was contemplating all of this as she lay, body drenched in pain, alongside a seldom used, abandoned highway. No one would be coming for her. The school never called her father when she missed weeks at a time, an hour would hardly be cause for concern. Her father was too busy now to know even if they did call. The best she could hope for was that resting here would give her enough strength to call a cab. Then she could figure out some way to hobble to said cab. Her left leg should still be okay for that, even she didn't feel up to it right now. The irony that a year ago even thirty minutes without contact would have been enough to summon up Fillmore and several school nurses was not lost on her. In fact, she was hallucinating that he was here right now. Stupid, that. Maybe it had something to do with her glasses tinting everything purple.

Except it wasn't a hallucination. The school bus exhaust was burning in her lungs. Fillmore's shadow was casting a cool patch of shade over her limp form. And his worried, familiar voice was begging for her to say something, to not be unconscious. Come on, kid, he begged, just give me your name, an ID, something.

"Sel," she muttered, gazing at him dazedly, and then everything went black as he bent over to pick her up.


	2. Chapter 2

Regulations at Skool were different than at X.

Sunglasses, hats, midriff baring outfits, trenchcoats, dyed hair, piercings everywhere – nothing was forbidden. It was easy to slip into another identity, another look, and become a new person. It was easy to be like them, look and talk like this was normal. The blue haired, green eyed girl who sat behind her in Science with the Russian accent, the boy named The Letter M who she was sure had named himself that, the teacher with pink hair and five eyebrow rings… This was normal now. This was life as she knew it.

Had she even meant to fool Fillmore into thinking she was someone else? Had she even meant to say Sel instead of Ingrid? No. She said it because it was her name, the way some people give their nickname instead of name out of sheer force of habit. If he didn't recognize her, she was not surprised. The purple sunglasses she wore shielded her eyes from him, and her hair, now dyed white-silver, had been slicked back. He had grown several inches. She hadn't. So when she told him her name, and was not recognized, it did not amaze her.

It just made things really, really awkward.

She decided to play the 'too injured to be questioned' card. Her partner had always been so sympathetic to that as to forget why he was even there. Groaning, she clutched her head, sitting up shakily. One hand went out, searching for her sunglasses. Her eyes fluttered open and quickly shut with a flinch. As her hand moved alongside the bedside table, she felt Fillmore hand her the sunglasses. After they were on, she opened her eyes and turned towards him. His expression was concerned but didn't show a hint of recognition. Good. That was what she wanted.

"You saved me," she said, voice deliberately slow, as if she was just coming to realize that. "Where am I?"

"X Middle School infirmary," he explained. "We called your school to tell them you were here. They said it's the third time you've cut Science this week. Tehama also looked through the files and found out that each time you go missing, a boy named Dirge does."

She raised her eyebrows. This was unexpected. He had investigated her despite her being a random student on the side of the road. He'd put Tehama on it. They didn't know her, yet they were worried? Was this what X was like in her absence, carrying on being loving and kind? She had expected a colder version of Fillmore to meet her, not a warmer one. Sighing, she rubbed the side of her face, where a magnificent bruise was forming. They'd gotten along great without her, hadn't they?

"Is Dirge bullying you?" Fillmore asked, voice suddenly serious. "Is he hitting you? We found his fingerprints all over your backpack and your coat. Is he-"

Sel nodded wordlessly. She hadn't expected them to realize this much this fast. She tried to keep her expression neutral, but she couldn't help the way her head drooped at Fillmore's words. So this was what it came to, then. Investigating a bullied student. He had no idea who she was, or he'd hand her over to Dirge himself, happily and eagerly. As it was, he only looked at her with pity, noting the bruise on her cheek with some concern.

"I'm going to go call your school. Sit tight. The nurse will be here with some ice for your cheek in a minute, okay?"

Another nod.

She waited until he was out of the room before laying down gingerly. She knew no good would come of this. The school would only give Dirge detention. He wouldn't attend. They wouldn't care. No one would punish him. They would let it go. Fillmore was a fool. He didn't know any better, of course, or he wouldn't try. He would be angry if he knew all his efforts were for nothing. He didn't know. He wouldn't know. She would not tell him. She would not even be here when the nurse got back. She had to get out of here, Sel realized suddenly. The longer she was here, the more likely she was to be recognized. Her voice would give her away if nothing else did. What if they look at her file, saw her middle initial of I, and realized who she was?

Standing on a sturdy leg and a shaking, stiff one, she pulled on her coat and left without a word to anyone. Slipping into the stream of students in the halls, she made her way down the stairs in search of a door. It was time to make herself scarce. Unfortunately, this proved harder than she would have expected. Her hair, glasses and outfit made her stick out like a sore thumb. After all, she was in direct violation of at least twelve dress code rules here she could think of. She had to get outside where there weren't so many people, she decided.

As she made her way towards the door, however, something happened that changed the course of Sel Teridu's life. If she had escaped out that door even a minute earlier or later, she would have never seen or heard from Fillmore again. But instincts inside her, buried deep within, sprang to the surface when she heard a scream of, "My homework!" followed by a blur rushing past. She gave chase, not realizing what she was doing until she pounced upon the culprit, sending them both crashing to the ground.

Her leg was on fire with pain, her breathing was harsh, and her glasses were skewed. Still, she smirked triumphantly until she heard a disapproving cough behind her. Turning her head, her heart stopped. There, behind her, stood not just Fillmore, but Vallejo and Folsom as well. And she had just done bodily harm to a student. She sighed as she stood, stars swirling at the corners of her vision.

"Damn regulations."

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Folsom's office was just like she remembered it.

Vallejo's yelling was just like it used to be. Fillmore's silent disapproval was familiar. The only thing was strange was that she felt so detached from it all, as if she were watching a scene of a play unfold. Was she really back here again? The carpet under her boots felt very real. The light reflecting in her glasses was visible. The air conditioning's affects were tangible. She was back. She was new. She had stood here a hundred times. It was the first time any of them had ever seen her.

"Sorry," she apologized to Folsom. "Just trying to help. Tripped. Accident. Didn't mean for anyone to get hurt."

"Yes, well, see to it you behave for the rest of your time at my school, or you'll have detention for a week," Folsom said by way of dismissal. "Now go get something to eat. You're too skinny."

Obediently, Sel exited the office. Realizing she shouldn't know where the cafeteria was, she stood, hands in her pockets, trying to figure out what to do. She could wander around for a while, but she was really hungry. Did she dare risk speaking even more and revealing herself for the sake of a hamburger? Her stomach growled audibly, and she cringed, deciding the answer was yes. Turning to Fillmore, she opened her mouth to ask him where to go.

He answered before she could speak. "I'll get you lunch. C'mon, let's walk and talk. You got some moves, girl. You a Patroller at your school?"

"No," she shook her head. "No open positions. Tried, though."

"Too bad," he mused, "You'd be good at it. But there's always next year. Hey, you look kinda familiar. You ever go to X before?"

She could have told him right there. She could've told him that she was Ingrid and she was so, so sorry for leaving, that she cared about him so much. She could have told him everything, gotten his trust back, or at least tried to earn his forgiveness. Wasn't he once her best friend? Didn't that mean something? He had been her world, her stability, her partner. Surely he deserved to be told some form of truth. Then the memories of how hurt he was flooded her, and she knew there was no salvaging what they'd had.

"No. Never."

And he believed her, because he was honest and open. He trusted people, even strangers, even when he shouldn't. He trusted her to tell the truth even when she didn't deserve it.

Just like before.


	3. Chapter 3

The apartment was empty, just like it always was.

As usual, there was nothing worth eating in the fridge. There was something wrong with the heater, causing it to whir and pop loudly. The TV was buzzing static at her from its spot in the living room. She did not move to fix any of these things. Rather, she stood there, silently taking it all in. The pile of dirty dishes, molded food and unwanted oatmeal in the sink was a welcome sight. Blood droplets on the kitchen floor and part of the wall were a little less welcome. Beyond that, the papers, university files and important documents that crowded the living room gave way to piles of unwashed clothes, still unpacked boxes, and the occasional pizza box. The TV stood on a pile of old textbooks, buzzing at her, bathing it all in pale blue light.

Home.

She breathed in deep the bitter smell, of mold, twelve hour old coffee in the pot, and a chocolate scented candle that had burned itself out. As she always did, she kept her boots on to make her way through the wreckage that was their two bedroom apartment. Ever since her sister died, the apartment was never cleaned. Even so, Sel's room was marginally better. There was a path to her bed, at least. Locking her bedroom door, making sure the curtains were closed, she painfully shrugged her way out of her knee length black coat, letting it fall to the floor.

One day, she told herself, if she left it there long enough it wouldn't smell like _him_ anymore. Eventually it would smell of here, and eventually she'd be able to bring herself to scrub her sister's blood off the kitchen wall. Then she would be able to live just like everyone else did, carefree and happy. Yeah, she snorted, and then the sun will freeze over. Falling listlessly onto the bed, she peeled off her boots before pulling part of a blanket over herself.

She wanted to sleep away the memory of Fillmore. She wanted to pretend today didn't happen. She wanted to make this whole thing go away so she could go back to fighting vampires and chasing aliens. This wasn't how life was supposed to be. He was out of her life. This was supposed to be over. And it was. She had talked to him, and gotten on with her life. There was no reason for her to go back.

No, she was lying. She had every reason to go back. That place was overrun with bootleggers and thieves, and the Patrol couldn't keep up with it anymore. She'd seen more robberies in a day than she'd dealt with in her year there. She had to help before someone got hurt. Danny, Anza, Tehama, Fillmore – everyone was in danger as long as they were there right now. They needed more Patrollers. She had nothing to do. It would be easy to transfer over into their school and help them.

But why? Why bother? They didn't want her, not anymore. If they knew who she really was, they'd hate her. They didn't seem likely to take her as she was, either, not now that she was so closed off and on edge. This was not the Ingrid Third they knew and needed. She was something else, someone else, now. She wouldn't be any use to them on the team. A new girl with a questionable background would only slow them down, make them suspicious. If only she could let them live their lives in chaos, she was sure things would be better for her.

'Every man for himself, for those who live for others die fast,' she quoted to herself. Wasn't that the truth this place had proved to her? That was how the world was, how life was. She couldn't be concerned about them now, not when her own life was falling apart. Still, wouldn't it be nice, she thought, to quit this life and form a hybrid of the two. She could be Fillmore's friend without any past hurt. He could trust her like he used to, and she could be a new partner, but she would be above and below the law like now, cold and ruthless and brilliant. She didn't have to go back to him as Ingrid Third. She could be Sel Teridu instead, someone without a record but with lots of enthusiasm. She could save him without him ever knowing it was her.

Sighing, she stared up at the spider web of cracks across the ceiling, trying to will this all away. Tomorrow, she reassured herself, she would decide what to do. Maybe she could take a day off, treat herself to a Brain Freezy and go play at the arcade, dye her hair again, pretend that she didn't have a care in the world. That sounded good, she decided. She'd do that, then go hang out with her new friends and resume her new life.

So why, she asked herself twelve hours later, was she standing on the steps of X Middle School's main building, watching the Safety Patrol give a press conference?

Because she had stood here over a year ago and been officially dishonorably discharged from the Safety Patrol. She had stood her a year and a half ago and accepted an award alongside Fillmore. A year and four months ago she had been awarded a star student medal on these very steps, standing at the top gazing down upon a crowd of admirers. They had cheered her on here. The student body had cheered for her and Fillmore here. Then, of course, they had glared her down here, watching her with piercing and angry eyes, confused and gossiping whispers.

Now she was not Ingrid. Sel had never been here before. Sel had never been discharged from the Safety Patrol, because she hadn't been part of any. She was a member of the crowd, silver hair mostly hidden by a black beanie, long coat left at home. No one gave her a second glance until she bumped into someone in the crowd. Turning to apologize, her eyes widened behind her violet glasses.

Danny O'Farrell stared up at her, grinning sheepishly as he picked up his camera. "Sorry. I guess it's gonna be a bigger turnout than I thought."

"Here, let me get that," she said, scooping up the photos that had spilled out of his pockets. "Not good to have these out. Might lose them."

"Thanks. Hey, are you new? I haven't seen you around before," he commented as they both stood upright. "I'm Danny, but everybody calls me O'Farrell. Sometimes they even refer to me in the third person."

"I am Sel. I transferred here from Los Barros," she explained quickly. "What's going on?"

His expression turned sour. "They're announcing the new Jr. Commissioner today."

"A new one? Mid-semester? At my old school they announced Commissioners in June and December, not mid-October."

"The election's been rigged," Danny announced flatly, eyes on the ground. "The last Commissioner leaving was, too. And everyone knows it. That's why everyone's pissed."

"Noticed that. Always this edgy, here?" she asked, gesturing with her head to the large group of protestors. "Elections rigged before?"

"No," he replied sadly, shaking his head. There were rings under his eyes, she noticed, and a scar across his left hand. His eyes were tired. "But I think all the elections are gonna be rigged from now on."

Sel opened her mouth to ask what he meant when a hush came over the crowd. She saw Folsom first, pristine as always and smiling like the empty headed official she often was. Raycliffe flanked her, solemn as before. Fillmore and Tehama, being the senior most Officers, were there as well. These were all expected things. She had pretty much known she'd see them, cleaned up, dressed nicely and at their most professional. It took a second to register that Fillmore was smiling slightly at Danny, not her, but that wasn't what shocked her. What made her heart stop and her breath catch was something, or rather, someone, far more sinister and much less innocent. Her eyes went wide as it hit her:

Parnassus was the new Junior Commissioner.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Okay, I just want to thank my reviewers for being fast and consistent. It's really nice to wake up and see that everyone liked my work, especially when the chapter was a foreshadowing one – I'm always nervous about those, because I don't do them very often. Seriously, thank you all for taking the time to review.

Now, a few answers to Quirky Misty's questions, because I'm sure you're all asking them yourself. Vallejo was thrown off the Patrol by Parnassus, who then proceeded to make Vallejo's life a living hell until he finally was forced to transfer over to a different school. For plot purposes, the details of this can't be revealed just yet – but everybody, even characters who don't know why Vallejo was thrown out/left, know that he's innocent and deserved that job.

Sel's identity will be revealed to the Patrol, but it will be against her will and won't happen for several chapters yet. As for who's still on the Patrol, Fillmore, Tehama, and Danny still are. Anza's absence will be explained later, as will the scar on Danny's hand. Just give it time? You don't want me to info-dump on you all, now do you? ;)

Oh, and this chapter will explain where the last name Teridu came from, and introduce some Johnny the Homicidal Maniac universe characters that will become relevant later.

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_He had been like family to her._

_He was technically her uncle and her father's half brother (different fathers, same mother), but he had been the black sheep of the family for so long, and he was so close in age that she didn't think of him like that. He was something else, closer than an uncle yet more like a mentor, like a father. Just not old enough for that, not by a long shot. They could pass as siblings, though, back in her black haired days, especially when they both wore their glasses and ran around in all black. He was her best friend now that Fillmore had abandoned her, and he had been her best friend before Fillmore had been in her life._

_They had been so reckless, staying up all night. The night was theirs that summer she spent friendless and new in town. They went to The Smoky Club even though she was underage, and she tried all sorts of foul drinks he loved and she hated. They bought odd trinkets and clothes from antique shops and thrift stores, adding to Ingrid's ever growing collection of oddities and abnormalities. They ate at gas stations and slept on park benches, crashing at his place or hers randomly, earning disapproval from her father._

_They talked about everything and anything. What had happened, why it had happened, why she was too scared to go back even though she could. X was a sore subject, closed off to anyone else. He was the exception, and he returned her trust by breathing new life into her, taking her alongside him wherever he went. She met Donkey 9, a girl who brilliance was matched by her outright insanity, Anne Gwish, an obnoxious Goth who her uncle irrationally crushed on, and Tess, an artistic and kind soul with awesome glasses. She replaced her limited wardrobe with clothes that were not at all as feminine as Ingrid's, and took up the name Sel. Only talking to him did she let herself be called Ingrid._

_She was so free that summer, a person of her own, unique and pure, running around in the filth and muck of the city. She did not fear getting dirty in it, in its corruption and darkness. Rather, she observed it quietly. She sampled alcohol, smoked a joint once, talked to black clad strangers and saw that ultimately subcultures were as shallow as pop culture. So she was a part of neither, just like he was, running around doing whatever she pleased, sleeping at odd hours and dreaming of her next new adventure._

_He had been drunk when he took her by the shoulders and looked her unsteadily in the eye, as if about to convey some important message. Usually it was paranoid and rambling, something that made little sense to her, but this time was different. She could smell the wine on his breath and see the glow of his thoughts in his eyes. Everyone else in the club had faded away into the background, too preoccupied with making out and getting drunk to care about two siblings chatting in the corner._

"_You'll have to go back to X, one day. No, wait, lemme finish," he started as she began to object. "One day you're gonna find yourself back there, because you're not meant for this crap. You're not meant to be dirty like this, kid. You're a good girl deep down. You're gonna go back, and I just want you to know that when you do, whether it works out or not, you'll always have family. I'll always be there for you." His arms wrapped around her in a too-tight hug, briefly, and then he was off hollering at Anne to take her top off._

_He was dead less than a month later, and after that, her family began falling apart. There was no family to go to in the present, but at the time, she had felt numb with shock. She had wanted family to mean him, her best friend, not to mean her immediate family. They had become like strangers. They never even talked to her anymore, preoccupied by work and their own social circles and newfound hobbies. He had last true friend._

_And thus, silently, Ingrid Third mourned her not-quite-family's death with the wordless vow that yes, one day, she _would_ return. It was cliché to swear such a thing on a grave… but quite frankly, he would've enjoyed the cliché factor immensely, saying it was moving or some such thing, so she didn't cry, merely smiled sadly as she reached out to touch his tombstone._

**In Memory of William 'Bill' Teridu**

**Paranormal Investigator, Scientist,**

**And Everyone's Annoying Little Brother.**

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There was a reason she was here.

She didn't believe in God, at least not the way other people did. The Thirds were a weirdly religious household, studying everything but absorbing little bits of each. She believed in the Buddhist thought that each person must make their own salvation. That was what was happening at X. Evil was taking over, and it was time to fight back against it. She was here, she realized, not for herself, but for the school, for Fillmore, Tehama, Anza, and Danny. (Although she hadn't seen hide or hair of Anza since she got here.) She was meant to make sure they weren't thrown from the force like so much garbage. She was meant to save the school from this corruption.

It was too late for her other school, just like it was too late for her. She could not get better, not anymore. Everything was too messed up in her life. But people here were different, fundamentally good and caring. They deserved an honest man as their leader. They deserved to be able to do their jobs in peace without a tainted head of office messing everything up. Justice wouldn't prevail under this boy's rule, she knew that. Too many officials in the other school were rigged. It was past saving. Here she was looking down a single boy with a big ego. Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses.

_I can take you_, she thought suddenly, fists clenching as she shoved them in her pockets. _You don't know who you're messing with._ And she didn't, either, to be quite honest. All the normal rules about investigating and fighting against someone were gone. She had no friends here to horrify, nothing to lose. She could be anybody here, which meant she could do anything. There was nothing stopping her from beating him up, black mailing him, psychologically tormenting him until he broke. There was no voice of conscious in her, not really. A small portion of inner goodness convinced her to help take him down. Past that, her heart was rather black, she realized quietly. Time in Los Barros had turned her into someone even she didn't recognize.

Good. She'd need that to deal with him. It was time to make sure that the blond boy had an unfortunate accident, something brutal but quick. Injuring him was the key. Causing pain was not. A person could only sink so far – she wouldn't hurt him for the sake of inflicting agony, just for the sake of getting him out of the Patrol's way for a while. After that she could do a more thorough investigation and dig up some dirt on him. Biting her lip, she glanced around the building. There was a small outcropping of stone directly above him. If she could get to that, she could knock him out with pretty much anything. All she needed was a route.

Making her way through the crowd while everyone was watching Parnassus' speech, she asked an on duty Patroller where the nearest bathroom was. He pointed her to the side door of the building. It had been so long she had forgotten it existed, and she was grateful that the young Patrollers were still naïve like the used to be. Making her way up the stairs inside, noting the total absence of people, she struggled not to flash back to all the times she'd chased perps through these halls. Now was not the time, she told herself angrily. She had a mission here.

The window overlooking the stone outcropping was a stairwell window. Unlocking it was tricky; it only had a lock for emergency openings, and it hadn't been used in a decade. With a groan, the window swung outward, opening slowly. There were lots of old things on the outcropping – gum, dead birds, rocks, tennis balls, a scuba mask and a phonebook from 1977. Random, yet somewhat logical. That was X, she smiled to herself, picking up the phonebook. Crouching down, she moved closer to the edge, where she would hopefully be able to get a clear shot in before being spotted.

It occurred to her that she could really hurt him, and that that was wrong. The old Ingrid would never have hurt someone, even someone as bad as Parnassus. But she'd seen this play out at Los Barros, the corrupt school politicians running things so badly for so long that everyone gave up. No one at Skool thought things would get better. They accepted hall monitors that beat people up, vandalism and spray painted gang logos on their lockers as the norm. She had already seen Danny, and his downcast, sullen outlook. Parnassus broke her friend and would turn this place into the same pit of chaos her other school was if he went unchecked.

She didn't like hurting people, even if it was justified. The difference between Ingrid and Sel wasn't that they didn't like it, however. It was that Sel had the guts to do it anyway, for the sake of her friends and for the sake of the school. Rising to her knees, one hand gripping the stone corner and the other raising the textbook high, she took aim, and threw the book.

A virtual unknown in this school, she slipped out a different back door, joining a stream of students from the south campus who were rushing to see what happened. An unfamiliar face to him, Fillmore's gaze did not linger on her. The Patrol were clearing the area, the protestors were cheering, the student body was horrified, and the chaos was nothing she couldn't handle. She gaped at the unconscious form alongside them and was hustled off to the edge of the perimeter the Patrol established alongside her fellow kid. An ambulance was called, people were scared, but they calmed down to a general air of curiosity by the time Parnassus was taken away. No one saw her move slowly to the back of the crowd and slink off towards the presumably empty Patrol Headquarters to do some investigating.

_And that,_ she thought to herself, _is why I'm here._


	5. Chapter 5

_It's always darkest just before dawn. – British proverb._

_It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black. – American proverb._

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One, two, three, four.

One floor up, down two hallways, three lock picks later, take four steps, and the whole of Safety Patrol Headquarters would be visible to you. Though the signs of Parnassus' rule would not be visible at a glance to you and I, to someone with photographic memory, the signs were obvious. The once pristine office was now filled to the brim with paperwork, files and reports, more than ever before, and Sel spotted several motion sensors. Nothing high tech, mind you, just those annoying toys that screeched and screamed if someone walked past them. Tiptoeing past them and over papers was a challenge.

Tehama's desk was as it had always been. Her password on her computer was the same, and her files on her computer were meticulously organized. As Sel went through the school's archives, it was easy enough to find the day Vallejo had been thrown out. What was hard to believe was what he had been charged with. Perhaps if Sel had been truly from a different school, and had never met Vallejo, she would have believed the lies in the school paper.

Maybe. She highly doubted it.

It was hard to quell the burst of heated anger she felt. Gritting her teeth, she began flashing through page after page of the archives, determined to get as much down as she could. She knew she had only three minutes before the Patrol would get in here and begin to investigate and so on and so forth. In the mean time, she had to find out everything she could about Parnassus. Abandoning the archives, she pulled up his student profile and frowned to herself, a sort of primary instinct within her screaming 'sociopath!' at him internally.

Born to a brain surgeon and an astrophysicist, he was a straight A student, IQ of 189, pre-pre-pre-Med Club, orchestra member, head of the Violin club, taking chemistry on a high school level – she sighed, rolling her eyes behind her glasses. As if she cared about that crap. What she needed was to find out how he rose to the top of the Safety Patrol. Vallejo stepping down wouldn't mean an instant in for Parnassus. Tehama and Anza were the senior most officers, they outranked him. If Vallejo was gone, the position of Junior Commissioner went to Joseph Anza and then Tehama Kamiya, then Fillmore. There was no way all of them had turned down the position, and there was no way in hell they'd all passed down the opportunity to run for the position. So how-?

"Who's there?" a voice called, and Sel froze.

"Fillmore?" she blurted out, out of sheer instinct. Thankfully her soft, low tone was nothing like Ingrid's, and he didn't recognize her. "Officer Cornelius Fillmore, right?"

He came closer, not turning the light on. Instead, he looked her over closely, his eyebrows coming down low. "It's you."

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. How many times had she sat at a computer and had Fillmore help her on a case? How many days had been spent together like this, partners on the right side fighting the good fight? If only she could freeze time and step back to when they were both Patrollers. But this was another time, another place, and she was another person entirely. He watched her now with tense shoulders and a puzzled expression, not ready to believe she was instantly innocent yet unwilling to arrest her because she'd proven herself to be a good person before.

He turned the computer monitor around, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. "Dawg, girl, you hacked Tehama's comp? That takes some skills." He paused, skimming over what she had been reading. "You're investigating Parnassus?"

Sel fought down panic, her voice coming out even despite the fact she was lying. "Whoever attacked him had to have had intimate knowledge of the school's layout, in addition to resources to get them inside an empty and locked building. Figured that out easily. Problem is, new to school. Don't know who his enemies are. Researching."

"You don't trust us to research this stuff?" Fillmore replied, crossing his arms. His tone had shifted, she noted, from suspicious to impressed to nearly playful. Clearly, even at close range, he hadn't recognized her as Ingrid.

"O'Farrell said election was rigged. Protestors outside. Patrollers among them. Who can I trust?" she shrugged lightly, pulling the monitor back towards her. "Files are unbiased. People are not."

He paused, looking her over, taking in the odd clothes and artificially colored hair. In his mind, she knew, he was trying to place her in a category, form a theory. She looked like the kind of kid who would be more at home in an alternative school, but everyone in Los Barros bent the dress code like that. She knew things only a Patroller or a criminal would know – and didn't everyone always saying in joking that all the kids from Los Barros went to Hell? She was neither a perfect cold and callous city girl nor a kind and caring member of X. She was something in the middle, and they were both only just coming to realize it.

"You gotta get out of here," he told her quietly. "You'll end up arrested for breaking and entering if you don't. C'mon, I'll show you the back door."

As they slipped out the secret exit in the back of the room, the one she was unsurprised to see but was supposed to be unfamiliar with, she looked over her former partner. His expression was serious, contemplative. If she wanted, she could bail out here, she realized silently. She could run away and never come back, never investigate, never risk the nightmare of him finding her out. Every second with him was calming and aggravating at the same time. Every time she looked at him he was familiar and foreign. This could quickly get to be too much, she knew, and she might slip up. He might recognize her as someone he once knew.

If only she could do this by herself. If only she could save them without anyone knowing who she was. But she couldn't, and that scared her. She didn't want them to be hurt, to be worked to death, to fall to corruption. That was her city's way, not theirs. They weren't going to be okay right now, and she knew that. Turning to Fillmore, she decided to take the plunge farther in instead of backing out.

"I need help. Can't do this on my own. You in?" she asked stoically as they found themselves outside, standing in a cold October wind. "Something's wrong here. School needs help. I can help. Somewhat."

He frowned. "What about Los Barros? Aren't you gonna look after your homies?"

Sel shook her head slightly. "Too late to help them. Too many people corrupt. They're used to it. People here aren't. Still fixable."

Fillmore considered this for a long moment. "You got a lot of skills, girl, I'll give you that, but I barely know you. You're new, and you're… strange," he said, changing his word at the last second. "Normally I wouldn't take someone like you up on that offer. But things are goin' down hill. People have been hurt, people who mean everything to me. If you can stop that, then I guess I have no choice but to give this a shot. Just know that you're gonna be in for a rough ride here at X, kid. You wouldn't be the first casualty we'd had this year…"

"Accepted." She stuck out her hand to him. "Deal?"

"Deal."

One second later, she was having a flashback to the two dozen times he'd touched her hand before. Three seconds later, she let go, reminding herself that this was not the reuniting of Officers Fillmore and Third, just the first official alliance of Sel and Cornelius. She tried to count to ten to silence her racing thoughts. One, two, three, four. And with that, Fillmore took her hand, and led her towards the South Campus, suddenly and quickly. He looked around, making sure no one saw them even though the whole place was deserted. She held her tongue until they ducked into the cellar of the South Campus Main Building, and then could restrain herself no more.

"Cornelius, what is this?"

"_This_ is the last safe place to meet here in school, and we've got to talk." He looked away, heavily. "I don't know why I'm doing this. Maybe it's 'cause Wayne taught me to give people chances, maybe it's because I'm running scared, but I feel like I can trust you. It's like I've known you forever even though I've only talked to you once. You're different than everybody else. You're smart, you investigate things, and you wanna do the right thing for no reason." He buried his face in his hands. "It's all shot to Hell around here. You can see that. But it didn't used to be like this. Things were different. There were better times, when nobody was afraid to walk the halls at lunch and kids didn't group-walk home to avoid being robbed."

She turned to him, all thoughts and pretenses vanishing. Tone barely above a whisper, she asked quietly, "What happened? Why is it like this?"

He breathed in slowly, one, two, three, four, before beginning his tale.

"It all started with Vallejo was framed…"


	6. Chapter 6

Saeryonim, pronounced see-ree-yo-nim. A Korean girl's name composed of sae, an Feudal Korean honorific, and Nim, an Ancient Korean honorific, with ryo, a southern dialect's title meaning 'honored' bridging the two. The name fell out of usage in the 1800's, as shorter names began to become more popular and names meaning honor began to be more masculine only, and is considered very antiquated in modern Korea. Girls with this name often abbreviate it, commonly to Sae, Saeryo, or, much less commonly, Sel.

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It wasn't often that Ingrid Third aka Sel Teridu found herself speechless.

It wasn't often that she found herself unable to think or breathe because she was hanging onto someone's every word. It was a rare day when she didn't interrupt someone to ask questions or insist upon direct eye contact the whole time. Only on a few occasions could she ever recall being so lost in someone else's words that she forgot where she was. She wanted to speak, to comfort, to gasp, to react, and yet her voice wouldn't work. She forgot where they were, who she now was, so lost was she in Fillmore's tale.

Unfortunately, that wasn't because it was so good.

It was because everything had gone so horribly, unimaginably wrong.

"Vallejo was a good man, one of the best. You don't know what it's like to be at a school like X with so many transfers and new people and suck ups. Most Junior Commissioners would freak out at first, but he didn't, and he certainly didn't play favorites with the suck ups on the Patrol. Wayne, his star Officer, brought me in, and Vallejo let a thug into his ranks. You know why? Because he was a good man. He always will be, every day, a better person than you or I could ever hope to be once in his life. He changed my life because he was willing to give me a second chance. He trusted people.

He was too trusting.

There was this girl named Malika, his ex-girlfriend. They got back together, she got her act together and started acting real nice, like she was a whole new and improved girl now that she was datin' him. He trusted her because he loved her, and love is blind. After a while we started trusting her too, because we all wanted to believe change is possible, that the past can be undone. We should've known something was up when she started going into his office after hours to do paperwork he'd missed. That's not Malika. She ain't never been that nice.

Summer goes along, she starts hanging out with us, all of us, and practically lived at Vallejo's house. She was so different that for a while, I even considered having her as my partner. That's how good she was at lying. You're smart, you can guess what happened: she stabbed us in the back, because not everybody changes and some people don't deserve a second chance. Summer ended, she was one of us, part of the Patrol, and so we all got back to work. O'Farrell tripped over his own two feet, I got in trouble for blowing up a vending machine, Vallejo was voted in again as Junior Commissioner. Life was back to normal.

Then one day these kids in all black barge in – you know what District Patrol is? If we're cops, they're the FBI and CIA combined. They only answer to the head of the school district, and they were pissed. They had search warrants, guns with rubber bullets, the works. We got cleared out so they could search, except Vallejo didn't come out. He got taken out the back door for questioning downtown. We got patted down and sent off to class. Our office was absolutely destroyed when we got back in, and all of us were charged with something, except for Malika.

I got accused of selling hall passes on the side, but I dodged that because my fingerprints weren't on anything in that entire drawer – oh, believe me, they checked. District Patrol are brutal. They take no prisoners, and boy, did they put us through the wringer. We lost half the Patrol that week, with Danny and Tehama getting off with five weeks detention. Vallejo got taken in to Louisville, Kentucky, where District Patrols across the country take you when they don't intend for you to come back. We all thought he was gonna get time in juvenile hall, because they don't take in just anybody. Meanwhile we hadn't seen hide or hair of Malika.

Turns out she was busy in Kentucky, testifying at Vallejo's evaluation. Unfortunately for her, my old partner Wayne was there, and he did everything in his power to reduce Vallejo's sentence. He knew people in the DP, his other old partner – it's a long story – so Vallejo just got expelled with 100 hours of community service and two months of detention. Just." Fillmore spat on the ground, annoyed. "That qualifies as a light sentencing when the DP are involved.

So time passes, we see him around town. I hadn't seen lots of people in the Patrol, but he knew who got expelled and transferred. We're talkin', and I ask him where Malika is. I thought she got hauled to Louisville and put on trial or somethin'. But no, home girl be up there telling the court what an abusive boyfriend he is and how cruel he is and how he took bribes. Typical traitor talk, I guess. Then he tells me Anza, one of our best Officers, is currently serving time in juvie. Anza is juvenile hall because that little witch said he-" Fillmore made a sound between a growl and a groan, punching the wall in frustration. "Anyway, he's gone and so was half the squad. The school went into an uproar when they heard what happened, because Vallejo is a good man.

We all know he didn't deserve to be outed from the Patrol. He certainly didn't need that media circus of a trial in Louisville. Everyone loved him. Even the crooks wanted him up in here because he gave fair trials and fair sentences as best he could. Now we got Parnassus sweepin' in, talking about life sentences, DP raids, three strike rules, and the right to drug test random students he deems need it. Meanwhile we're running around trying to do everything with half the people we need. It's all shot to hell…

I don't have a partner. I don't have my old boss. I don't even know how many of the Patrollers we got left I can trust. People are getting hurt, hurt for real, in just the month and a half we've been without a good leader. Now, with Parnassus leading us, we're just doomed. Everything's going wrong, and the only way it's gonna be okay is if we can get Vallejo back. But now that she's Parnassus' second in command and it's so obvious the election was rigged, I don't think there's enough clean Patrollers to make things right anymore."

There was a long silence as Sel processed what he had said, jaw slightly ajar and eyebrows raising and dropping all throughout his recollection. She looked lost in thought as she leaned against the wall, chewing the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. Then she shook her head.

"We can makes things right. Malika planted false evidence in Patrol Headquarters so Parnassus could take control. Both power hungry, both evil. Vote counter bribed or threatened, maybe both. We find them, get them to confess, tap Malika and Parnassus' houses. Then we'll go straight to Louisville to demand a review before they can stop us. No time for them to object. Problem solved."

He turned to the silver haired girl, raising his eyebrows questioningly. "Won't you get in trouble for invading their privacy? That's worth a Kentucky trial itself."

She shrugged, expression stoic. "Worth it to save a place that can be saved. People being hurt, expelled, used. Has to be stopped."

"You barely know me," he muttered softly, "And I don't know you at all. This is a dumbass idea that'll get you time in juvie. I don't get why you're doing this, or why I should even try to do this and go down with you."

"It's better go down trying than to stay indifferent," she replied quietly. "Indifference is what Los Barros was built on. Things are rough there. Insane. Deaths, stabbings, madness, arson, and no one stops it. Everyone got used to it. The Patrol incompetent. Won't help when things go wrong… or when people go missing." She held out a picture to him, retrieved from her pocket, of a girl with dark magenta hair and golden eyes. "Cousin, named Gazelle. Gazzy. Missing for four months. We only just received notice she was absent. Patrol won't search. Police don't care. Could be dead."

Fillmore momentarily lost his ability to speak. "Dawg, you mean no one in the entire city will help you?"

"Her own father won't look for her. No one cares. Everyone's apathetic. That's why Los Barros is such a nightmare." She placed a hand on his shoulder as he continued to stare at the picture of ten year old Gaz, stunned. "That's why I'm helping you. Things can change. We can save X. Maybe you're right. Maybe we'll be causalities. At least then no one innocent will have gone down. At least then, someone goes missing, people here still care. There's still hope here. Can't give up. Have to try. For Gaz, for Anza, for Vallejo."

"For Vallejo," Fillmore echoed, and then his face snapped into its old determined grin. "Let's do this."

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Fillmore, Old English surname pronounced phil-mor, meaning 'very famous', and/or 'exceptionally lucky'. Considered a vain name for slaves to take after they were freed, some black people nonetheless took it legally out of sheer spite even though it endangered them, showing incredible determination and freedom of will.


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Note: The second I resolved to update more, real life began to get in the way. Sorry if these aren't coming as often as you'd all like. This is sort of filler until I get some more sleep, sorry…

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All the kids from Los Barros go to Hell.

That was what everyone said, right? Everyone knew what a hellhole that place was, with crime so rampant it was safer to flunk out than even try to go. The Girly Rangers were worse there than the Robins had ever been at X, all school elections were rigged beforehand, and everything was under funded. Kids there scraped by on pure apathy, bare change and scraps of food. Everyone was either poor and insane, rich and insane, or in the middle class and insane. Well, insane by X's standards. They thought their fellow Los Barros kids were doing great. No one in the madness saw what it was.

Except her. Her with the short three letter long name, the short sentences and the faint Spanish accent. She spoke Spanish, he'd seen her conversing with an office aid getting her transfer into the school finalized. That was hardly unusual, given how many people in Los Barros spoke Spanish, it just struck him as strange that she knew it. She wore her hair silver and slicked back, was taking Latin _Three_, a class most high schoolers didn't qualify for, and she didn't touch food with her hands. She wore sunglasses inside and paid the fines she got by the Safety Patrol with twenty dollar bills.

He tried to figure out just why she was here, at X, helping him out. Gaz was gone, so now Sel was running around dishing out justice. It wouldn't make sense, except she'd been doing that before she met him. She'd broken into the Safety Patrol office, hacked Tehama's comp and would have made it out safely even if he hadn't been there. She wasn't playing him. She was investigating, trying to right wrongs where she could. But why X? Why not San Altos or Angeles de Sica or one of the dozen other Spanish speaking cities she could be helping?

There was something about her that didn't add up, something that wasn't right. Her voice so flat, lifeless, stoic, and she spoke in a clipped, hushed manner. The effect was creepy even at best, outright disturbing at worst. She wasn't all there in the head. There was something frigid and unwelcoming about her. He couldn't put his finger on it until he realized she was on edge. Even though they had formed some kind of alliance, opened up, talked to each other, she was nervous. Was life so bad in Los Barros she couldn't even trust in the last good man standing at X?

Yes, he reminded himself, yes, it was. Even if he had a natural bond with her, an urge to confide and trust in her, that didn't mean he instantly deserved to be trusted. Life had spat on her, left her with no real reason to even try to fight the good fight anymore. He didn't ask where the scars on her face came from, because they were deep and terrifying, but he stared when she wasn't looking and began to feel something akin to sympathy well up inside him. They were both lost and alone, fighting for the sake of sanity and peace as they knew it, and even if it was a good cause, it was awfully hard to be so alone all the time. When he watched her talk to people, it was easy to see she wasn't good at speaking.

Had she once been different? Wasn't there ever a day where she smiled instead of stoically blinking at him? Having her over at his house was insanely awkward. They spent more time awkwardly sipping drinks and staring at one another than they did anything else. Even so, he was glad to see she came, even if it was just to discuss plans with him. She was so alone, isolated even in the crowds at X, hovering unnoticed in a corner at lunch and jumping a mile whenever she was touched. He had no idea if the little moments he spent hanging out with her were doing her any good. All he knew was that he was concerned, justifiably so, for her mental health.

After a week of her constantly snatching bits of food out of his fridge and finding her in his garage, asleep on the couch, he begins to wonder about her family. Her mother, she put on her school registration forms, is deceased. Her father, if he's alive, doesn't call the school or the Safety Patrol to find his daughter. Fillmore's father is a policeman, they'd know if the cops were looking for her. Has she just been forgotten? Doesn't anyone care? He puts a blanket on her and restocks the fridge behind his parents' backs, making sure she knows he won't throw her out into the streets. She vanishes after that, maybe going to live somewhere else, maybe making the commute from her home to here, he doesn't ask.

She's not easy to get close to.

It isn't that she doesn't want to be close to him. Her speech skills are the main hang up. If only she spoke normally, perhaps they might be a better team. As it is, he gets her copies of the blueprints she asks for and waits for her to make her move. She's planning something, he knows, he just isn't sure what. Whatever it is, two weeks into this alliance and she's been over at his house every day, at all hours, sometimes waking him up to briefly go over part of a plan that needed fixing. She's not subtle, either, leaving windows open, doors cracked, and lights on wherever she goes. Fillmore's mother is not pleased with this until she sees the scarred and ribcage-through-skin thin girl, and then Sel finds herself bombarded with soul food every time she comes over.

The same thing would be comical, but it's Sel, so it's just weird. This whole thing is weird. He's not sure he understands himself anymore. He trusts her with his life and he just met her and he comes home today and she's standing, not sitting, standing on his bed, eating what appears to be cheesecake with her bare hands and no plate. And this is normal. This is Sel. That's how she rolls. He's _getting used to this_.

She's messed up, he realizes, shaking his head at her, but then again, so is he. This isn't how life is meant to be. Parents are supposed to take care of their kids. He shouldn't be able to trust strangers over friends. What they have isn't exactly a friendship as the dictionary would define it, it's more like a kinship. They're lost and sinking fast. With every passing day the school grows more and more angry at what's happened. Crime is soaring because Parnassus is hard on the little crooks and easy on the big. The happy school filled with petty crime he used to know is vanishing. Tehama is swamped with work from day to night. Everything has gone all wrong. The only thing that's really been consistent in the past two weeks since the election is sneaking home documents that he shouldn't even have access to and going over them with Sel.

This is routine now. _She_ is routine now, the last good thing standing in his life. He's not sure if this is a good idea, if she's sane, if he's sane, or if they even have a shot. Then he catches her looking at Gaz's picture or sees her sprawled out on the garage couch and remembers that this isn't about just him. This is about her and everyone like her, good people who've had someone hurt. The good person, the honest kid, may soon be an extinct breed, beaten down by the mass of thieves roaming the halls. Soon every kid might be as battered as Sel looked, and their parents as uncaring as her father. If they don't stand up for the rights to a fair election, honest officers and fair trials, if they were to give up, there'd be one more Los Barros out there.

And if he let that happen, he's sure _he'd_ go to Hell, because Parnassus is a fate worse than death.


	8. Chapter 8

Author's Note: Within the second half of this chapter, a character appears that is not an OC and is not from the Fillmore universe. But I do not own her, so do not sue me. (And to anyone who understands who she is without googling it, I salute you, but DO NOT put in the reviews where she's from. Don't screw over your fellow readers, people. It's not nice.)

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Sel had basically turned his garage into her planning headquarters.

Firstly, after a while the whole plan came out. Fillmore told his parents everything about what they were doing and why. Maybe normal parents wouldn't have understood, but Fillmore's father was a seasoned police officer, and he knew how he'd feel if his Chief was thrown off on false charges. Fillmore's mother was a bit wary of the whole operation, worried for her son and extremely concerned for Sel. But they let them do it, or at least, plan to do it, because someone had to try. They were nervous about it, of course, they just had a sense of justice that outweighed their fear.

Thus the garage, where Sel pretty much lived at this point, became their main planning area. A wall was now covered in blueprints that covered the layout of the school, in immense detail. Virtually every building was covered, with little thumb tacks stuck in at random areas Sel deemed good vantage points, unsafe or a number of other things. She had a color-coded system she hadn't yet explained to him. She also had a radio, stolen from her math class, that she used to listen to X news religiously every spare second she could. What she was doing, exactly, he hadn't quite figured out. She was, he gathered, trying to understand the school, which was radically different from Los Barros. It was somehow tied into the plan. He didn't understand how. He didn't have to. She was the planner, he was the active worker.

They'd have to get Parnassus' and Malika's addresses. Malika's was easy. Fillmore had been to her house once last summer. Parnassus was the hard one. His wasn't even listed in the school directory – at least, not on a level where Safety Patrol members had access to it. It would take a break in to the Main Campus and a raid on the main office to get that. This was no easy task, even for someone as good as Fillmore. Sel was careful, though, aware what would happen if he was caught, so she was planning. The places cameras were, the teachers that stayed after hours, the evening Patrol officers' routes – everything was accounted for. If any two people could break into X's most heavily guarded building and get away with it, it was Sel and Fillmore.

The couch Sel was using as a bed was currently covered in blankets, the spare ones the Fillmore family never used. It was strange to see her sleep, because only then was he aware of how thin she was. Malnourished was closer to the truth. Time spent eating good food might help, and was helping, but he was beginning to see why she didn't mention her family never much. Anyone who couldn't be bothered to feed their kid wasn't worth talking about – although she did mention he was at work from five in the morning to nine at night during the week. Still, he didn't think that was a good excuse.

She was beginning to be like one of the family. She ate dinner with them, woke up insanely early to make breakfast for them, and at home she worked on her map alongside Fillmore, listening while he talked about the Patrol and all the paperwork he was swamped with. It was strange to be getting so used to someone who talked like she did and was as serious as she was, but at least he knew he could trust her. All the new officers in the Patrol were either such amateurs that they were useless or in it purely to look good on college application forms. Sel was convinced most of them were criminals, and had avoided the Patrol as best she could. It wouldn't do for anyone to become too familiar with her. She had to be a stranger to them for the plan to work.

How unknown she was was literally part of the plan. Quiet and reserved in class, member of no clubs or after school activities, she was friendless and liked it that way. She did not talk to him at X. Her route home was different everyday. Her clothes were normal if dark hued, and so she was carefully making herself invisible. No one cared who she was, no one would notice if she died, and most relevant to the plan, no one knew she and Fillmore were friends. If the Patrol caught on that something was amiss, that someone was stealing blueprints from them, then he wouldn't be a target of suspicion. After all, he did his job, his homework and had only Patroller friends, right? Right. But even if he was caught, no one would suspect someone as dull and anti-social as Sel to be involved in this, and so she would be able to carry on the plan no matter what happened.

Not that they expected to be caught. Everyone was too busy investigating who had hit Parnassus in the first place and who would put a hit out on him. Of course, Sel knew the truth, she just didn't say anything. She wasn't a suspect, so she had no opinion on the matter. She was busy anyway, with things Fillmore didn't even know about. Wayne wasn't the only one with contacts in District Patrol, so while he was asleep, she was on her cellphone, calling in a few favors.

"Hey," she muttered into the phone, eyeing the clock warily. "It's me. Yeah, I'm in HQ. So how's the Anza case going?"

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At first, when Anza was awakened, he didn't answer.

Sometimes it was better that way, he thought, to pretend this wasn't happening and he wasn't currently in juvie. It was easier than anything to sleep, to try and dream as much as possible. A few times, the guards had been nice enough to let him sleep through breakfast. The hunger wasn't a problem, because he didn't want the prison food anyway. Stubbornly keeping his eyes closed, he only opened them when he heard the guards speak. He had a visitor, they said. Groggily, he stared up at them, brushing his uncut and unkempt hair out of his eyes. He hadn't been allowed visitors since he was put in here – even his parents couldn't see him. Who was so important standard rules didn't apply to them?

They let the visitor into his cell. She was tall, with mannish shoulders and black hair that fell to her waist. Her light green eyes were cold, her skin was pale, and she was wearing a District Patrol uniform. Not just any District Patrol uniform, though, the black and red trimmed one that marked her as being the Head of the state's District Patrol Officers. He straightened up immediately, brushing his hair behind his ears and hoping he made an alright impression, although if she knew why he was here, that was already a lost cause. She nodded to the guards, and they backed off, although they still watched the two warily. Stepping closer, she looked him over as if he were an interesting piece of art, studying him with an unblinking gaze that sent shivers up his spine.

"Hello," she said stoically. "My name is Laura Kinney, and I'm a District Head."

"Hey," he replied weakly, feeling nervous the second he found out her rank. "I'm Joseph Anza, but you probably already know that."

Laura nodded. "I do. I know why you're here, and I also know that you're innocent. I'm here to get you out. Pack your things, get breakfast, and I'll explain more on the way."

"On the way?" he echoed, eyes going wide. "What? Where are we going? What do you mean, you can get me out? What-"

She shook her head quickly. "It's a very long story. Pack your things. We'll skip breakfast here and get it on the way home if you want, but we've got to go."

Confused, he voted for not getting crappy prison food. Anza packed his things, what few he was allowed to have, rapidly. The whole time the guards searched through his room and bag, he tapped his foot nervously, watching his would-be savior. She was incredibly muscular, with long fingered hands. He shuddered slightly; something wasn't right about her. Who the heck was she? Why was she breaking him out? There was no way District Patrol had cleared this. He wasn't due for release any day soon, they'd need someone to vouch for him to release him – oh, wait. That was her, he supposed. But why?

Silently, she led him through the halls to a DP transport car, where they both got in the back. The driver pulled forward without any instructions. Laura told the driver one word, _McDonald's,_ and indeed, they stopped there a minute later. She wasn't someone that anyone could say no to; Anza was under the distinct impression she was angry, and was the last person he'd ever want to piss off. Handing him a breakfast fit for a king, she watched as he tucked into it, eating quickly to fill the silence. Although his mind was full of questions, he wasn't particularly sure he wanted to hear what she had to say. Quite honestly, being busted out might not be a good thing if she was going to keep glaring at him like that.

When he finished, she began to speak, watching the other cars on the highway as she did so. Her voice was like velvet wrapped in steel, drawing him in and making him uneasy all at once. Even though he knew he should be focusing on where they were going, he simply watched her, the way her lips moved as she spoke, the slight narrowing of her eyes on certain words, and felt as if she was terribly familiar somehow.

"My name is Laura. I've been a member of the Safety Patrol for three years, District Patrol for one. I got promoted to Head after a shoot out in Los Barros. But that's not important. The important thing is I have friends there. One of them vouched for you. I trust her completely." Her eyes flickered towards him. "I don't trust many people." She resumed watching traffic. "I got you out because of her. You're going to work off your sentence as a more experience Officer's partner. You'll also have detention every day for the rest of the school year, be forbidden to go to any sports games or choir performances, and cannot go on any field trips or be alone with a student without another officer as your chaperone."

He sighed, running a hand through his midnight blue hair. "That's lenient."

Her pastel green eyes met his as she smirked slightly. "You have no idea what it took to get them down to that. Regardless, I managed to get you a partner you'll like: Cornelius Fillmore."

Everything hit him then. His eyes went wide. Voice a whisper, he asked, "I get to go home?"

She nodded. He tackled her in a hug that was crushing in its intensity, knocking her back against the window. Startled, she could only stare as Joseph Anza had his first true meltdown since he'd been put in juvie. Tears streaked down his cheeks as he murmured 'thank you' over and over again into her ear. District Head Kinney didn't respond. A part of her, the part that hated human contact, wanted to push him off and throw him out of the car. But knowing what he'd been through in these past few months, she just waited for him to get it out of his system, sympathy visible in her icy eyes.

He sniffled, pulled back, and came to his senses. She handed him a tissue, and he was glad for her expressionless face, because she didn't seem to hold any disdain for a boy crying. He wiped at his face, embarrassed. Picking at the remains of his breakfast, he realized that most District Heads would have given him suspension for that. It was just so hard to keep himself together. He was going home. Home. His parents would be there, and Tehama, and Fillmore. Everyone he thought he'd never see again would be real to him again. He hadn't seen his family in so long, or had a haircut, or been outside… Closing his eyes, Joseph Anza felt the first real grin he'd had in months bloom across his face.

"Thanks for doing this, Laura," he said, sounding serene and far away. "I owe you more than you can ever know."

"You're welcome," District Head Kinney added under her breath, "But don't thank me just yet…"


	9. Chapter 9

Author's Note: I am a terrible person for introducing a character like that when I don't intend for her to come up again for a long time. But don't worry, all your curiosity will be quenched in time. Eventually. This fic is quickly becoming much more long winded than I had meant it to be. Oh, and I am **so** going to Hell for this chapter. I wanted to write a chapter about them breaking into the school and kicking ass and taking names.

Instead, you people get to sit through romance and dreams and nightmarish pasts AND corny dialogue. Sometimes all at once. Sorry! But I couldn't get this out of my mind, and I did promise there'd be romance, so…

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_He was dreaming._

_It wasn't a dream where he knew he was dreaming, however. He was seriously panicked, running through the halls of an unfamiliar school. The floor tiles were checkered black and gray, and the walls were dark navy blue. This place, he realized dimly, was Hell on Earth. The classrooms were filled with ghostly, unnatural blue light and teachers who hissed instead of speaking. The children all had multi-colored hair, strange clothes, eyes that were permanently shut. Their oddly thin bodies shuddered as he rushed past._

_Los Barros. He was running through the middle school at Los Barros. But why? Why was he in this hellhole where everything was so dark and hopeless? What could he possibly be-_

"_Sel?"_

_He ran to her where she lay on the floor, crying and shaking. Because this was a dream, he didn't think to question what he was seeing, and he didn't react right away. Instead, he scooped her up into his arms and shushed her. The floor was icy cold against him, and he shuddered, but he didn't let go as she continued her decidedly un-Sel-like hysterics. Around them, the world seemed to go darker and darker. The students in the halls vanished. The lights went out._

_The shadows had eyes, eyes and teeth and they whispered things he didn't understand. She understood, however, putting her hands over her eyes and shaking her head violently. She whimpered that no, no, that was a lie. They were liars. She wasn't bad, she wasn't evil, she wasn't, she wasn't… He pulled her closer, and he could feel her hands grasp his shoulders, smell the hair gel on her head, and he knew he had to save her somehow. The shadows crept closer, invaded windows, appeared in the cracks on the floor. They sneered, shouted, chuckled, and Sel curled into a ball, burying her face in his chest where she couldn't see them. Her glasses fell to the floor. She didn't pick them up. She didn't move._

"_It's okay," he said firmly, nuzzling her affectionately. "It's alright. I'm here for you, okay? I'm not leaving you, either."_

"_You would if you knew," she choked out, voice steady as tears streamed down her face. Her eyes were shut tight, and she wouldn't meet his gaze. "God, how can you be so ignorant at present yet so smart in retrospect?"_

_He wrinkled his nose, confused. Sel didn't talk like that. Her sentences weren't that long, ever. Yet it was so familiar, the big words and exasperated tone. He had heard her before. For a split second, he had a thought, a crazy thought, and he asked her outright, voice breathy with amazement and shock, "Ingrid?"_

_She pushed him away, fell to her hands and knees and sobbed. The slicked back hair was now black. The shadows screamed with laughter, uncontrollably. Dark hands reached for her, hundreds and hundreds of them. She didn't resist as they began to tear into her, rip at her skin and clothes and hair with sadistic glee. Each injury sent a wave of joy through the shadowy crowd. He felt the cold around him fade, and when he reached out for her, his hand slid right through her, transparent and intangible._

"_I'm sorry," she said quietly, and her opened eyes were green, her hair was black but oh God, she was Sel with that damn stoicism, "I'm so, so sorry."_

_Then the shadows pulled her into them so he could no longer see her, just hear her cries of agony and anguish and watch as blood soaked the black and gray tiles._

_And with that, Cornelius Fillmore woke up screaming for the first time in his life._

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Sel was the first in his room when he woke up.

"Cornelius, heard you from garage. What happened?"

He didn't answer. He stared at her with dull, hazy eyes. Taking his glasses off the bedside table, she placed them on him, hoping it would help bring him coherency. He continued to listless stare at her, not moving for a disturbing long time. His parents were out, going to some charity police dinner. It was just them. Just Cornelius Dilbert Fillmore and Saeryonim Teridu. Except maybe only half that sentence was true. Maybe- no, that was crazy. Just because she was smart and investigative didn't make her Ingrid. That wasn't even remotely logical. So she came from out of town and fought crime and didn't play by the rules. That didn't mean… but it could… he felt nauseous, and sighed, rubbing his eyes before making a split second decision.

Lightning fast, Fillmore swiped her glasses from her and turned on the lamp beside his bed. While she was still startled, he stood and moved closer, until he was nose to nose with her. For a moment, he didn't even dare breathe. Her eyes.

They were golden.

The golden brown was basically pure gold with flecks of brown, a kind of ultra-tawny he'd never seen before. He studied her carefully for some sign of color contacts. Finding none of the shine, ring of coloration or pure coloration found in contacts, he breathed a sigh of relief, falling back onto his bed. Standing above him, the white haired girl tilted her head questioningly. A strand of it fell forward, framing a face that seemed much rounder than Ingrid's now that he looked at it closely. Then there were the scars, of cross, the two long ones that went across her eyes and the bridge of her nose. Ingrid never had those. Her skin was resilient to scarring. Then again, she'd been well fed. Sel wasn't.

Good lord, he was stupid. She wasn't even remotely like his partner. She wasn't Ingrid by a long shot. It had just been some crazy dream of his. He shook his head, chuckling. He'd had dreams about eating a giant marshmallow, dueling Tehama with violins as weapons and living underwater. And here he thought this dream was some kind of beam of truth. He was so stupid. Handing her the glasses, he smiled apologetically.

"Sorry. I just had to make sure you were real," he explained, and she nodded curtly. "You understand." He grabbed her wrist as she turned to go. "Uh, Sel? Can I ask you something?"

She turned to look him in the eyes, and when she nodded he found himself transfixed by how the scars were on her eyelids, too. Curiosity was burning through him, and even if she wasn't his old partner, he still cared about her, just as much as he had Ingrid. Maybe that was what the dream was trying to tell him, he realized suddenly. Maybe he was supposed to be there for her like he hadn't been there for Ingrid.

"Who are you?" he murmured softly, watching her face closely. "Where are you from, for reals? Where are your parents, your family?" She turned her head away, eyes downcast. "I want to know you. I'm worried about you."

"Shouldn't be. Just me," she muttered, and she tried to twist out of his grip. He held tight, taking both her arms by the wrist and locking eyes with her. "Will tell you what I can. Won't like it. Won't want to be near me. Not a good person." She winced, gazing at the floor. "Never a good person. Always bad, always rebel. Born bad. Mother a brain surgeon. Father professor. Sister, older. Half brother, younger. Born in San Altos. Went to school there. Teased. Hurt. Mocked. Mother gunned down in broad daylight. No one cared. I knew who did it. Too smart for my own good. Brother paranormal investigator. Uncle, too. Wanted to be like them. Wanted to help. Wanted to make difference. Used their skills, talents. Tracked down man who killed my mother. Wanted revenge. Was a fool, of course.

Scars from him, reminder. Reminder nothing can change, there is no hope. No one cared. Police ignored me. Laid in bed for a week. Cried. Then, took a gun from my father's room. Went back. Shot man through the head. No one noticed. No one cared. Except me. I decided I wouldn't die. Los Barros is dead inside. Everyone has gone mad. Not me. Decided to protect my family, my friends. Wanted to keep them safe. Loved them." Her voice wavered dangerously, and he half expected her to cry. "Loved them lots."

He felt his stomach twist. Loved, past tense – oh, no, he thought to himself, I don't want to hear this. But he was rooted to the spot, his hands entangled in hers, rubbing, soothing, comforting as he moved closer. Her voice was failing to be calm and stoic the longer she spoke. Eventually she might crack, break down and sob. For now she was teetering on the brink of that, and it didn't suit her. He couldn't put this golden eyed, baby faced girl and cold, stoic Sel together as one person in his head. Was this how she was deep down? Was this the real her? He stood not a foot from her now, unable to move, terribly curious and afraid of what she might say next.

"Couldn't protect them. Brother dead. Murderer still free. Tried to kill him. Failed. Sister died in a car accident. Cousin Gaz gone. No one cared. No one ever does. Everything gone. Family ruined, father a workaholic. Always alone. Worthless. Just a murderer myself. Scum. Trash. Failure." She paused, sighing. "Trying to make right. Trying to help. Want to be worth something. Want to be good. Kind. Helpful." She shut her eyes tightly. "Want to be a person. To have a soul."

He squeezed her hands gently. "You've got a soul. Everyone does."

She smiled joylessly, tsking at him as if he were naïve or a child. "Yes, but I'm going to Hell."

Fillmore smiled a cunning, thoughtful smile, and there was a plan brewing in his mind as he retorted, "Not if I can help it," and kissed her.


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Note: Yes, there will be Fillmore/Ingrid with nice hintings of Anza/Tehama. Did everyone really think this was in the romance section by mistake or something? Also, pardon the late update, I was busy for a bit. College has started up, so, well, you know…

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Sel's golden eyes went wide, but she didn't pull away.

When their lips parted, she leaned her head against his chest, eyeing their intertwined hands thoughtfully. She caressed his hands with her thumbs as she breathed in slowly, looking a million miles away. Looking over his glasses, into his stormy gray eyes, she seemed to be at a loss for words. The silence was deafening. The moment seemed to stretch on forever. For a while, they simply stood there, each lost in their own whirlwind of thoughts. Fillmore felt his mind shut down, his cheeks going red as he realized what he had just done. Whatever happened to subtlety, he wondered to himself, watching her closely.

"Bad idea," she said at last. "You, me. Me. Killed a man, Fillmore. Not right inside." She sighed. "Want to be. Want to be back to normal. But–"

"Saeryonim," he firmly said, pronouncing her name slowly and carefully, "It's okay. We're gonna be okay. _You're_ gonna be okay. I promise. I'm here for you, okay? We're gonna get through this."

"Then what?" Sel replied softly. "Can't stay forever. Father would notice eventually. Would go back to Los Barros. Be alone. In danger. Everyone corrupted. Back with street trash, where I belong. You would be with Patrol. Friends. Family that loves you. New life. No room for extra burdens."

"You're not a burden," he murmured, kissing her on the cheek. Her eyes closed, and he gingerly kissed her on the bridge of her nose, where she was scarred. Sel's expression turned into one of bliss as she squeezed his hands. Pleased, he planted a series of small kisses along the dual lines across her face. "You're special. To me. I need you. Ever since I've met you, we've had this connection, this bond, and that means a lot to me. I know we might make a weird couple, but some things are worth working at, y'know?"

"Mmm." She titled her head upward to allow him easier access to her upper face. "Answer question. After this, what then? Can't live here forever. Can't stay. What then? Would you leave me?"

He paused, partly because it was one of a handful of times she'd ever used the word me, and partly because a pit of guilt was twisting in his stomach. Was this karma? Was this God paying him out for abandoning Ingrid, never speaking to her and being a jerk for so long? So this was fate, then. This was what life was giving him, a second chance to be a man for once and do the responsible thing. Maybe that was what his subconscious was telling him in the dream, that on some level he knew he'd leave her and then she'd be all alone all over again. In Los Barros. A phantom image of the shadows suffocating and engulfing her made him shudder. No, he decided internally, he wouldn't leave her. Not ever.

"I could transfer to your school. I could save yours after you saved mine. Serving the spring semester at another school would look good on my permanent record," he told her as her eyes snapped open in shock and disbelief. "Your school accepts a lot of transfers. It could work. You wouldn't be alone. I'd be there every day, for you. We'd be okay, girl. So long as we got each other, we're doing better every day."

"Where would you live?" Sel asked curiously. "No family there. Not Mexican or white."

"True, but you got a couch, so," he shrugged, "We'd make it work."

"You don't know me," she muttered, closing her eyes as if in pain. "Not worth it. Not worth it at all."

And Fillmore shook his head, but not wanting to ruin the moment, he kissed her on the bridge of her nose again. She didn't pull away.

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Breaking into a heavily guarded building takes a specific kind of mindset.

The people who are capable of such a thing ar either running scared, arrogant, or have a cause that's worth it to them. An ordinary person would be nervous, sick to their stomach, scared, uneasy, or at the very least shaky. But people like Fillmore aren't ordinary. Experience soothed the jittery part of his mind. Planning soothed him. Sel soothed him. The very thought that weeks of planning and plotting had gone into this drove the fear from his mind. He knew with every step he took that Sel was with him all the way, carefully planning out his route. There was no fear, no worry, only dedication and trust.

And on the other side of the cell phones that had replaced their old walkie talkies, Ingrid was shaking. This wasn't right. She was in too deep, way over her head. She had called in favors from people. She'd spent two weeks planning this. She'd kissed Fillmore. Burying her head in her hands, she tried to focus, to only live in this moment. If she let this overwhelm her, she feared she wasn't going to be able to handle it. She'd cry, or blurt out even more personal things he wasn't meant to know, or, more painful still, go into detail about what happened – she had to pull it together. Taking a deep breath, she began to speak, voice stoic, calm and reassuring, because that's who Sel was and, for better or worse, Ingrid was stuck playing that role right now.

Her backpack lay on his bed, slightly open. Rummaging through it for the last set of blueprints she needed, her hands hit metal and she froze. "That's where it went to," she muttered, pulling out what appeared to be a metal binder full of drawings. She flipped through them, briefly, allowing herself a small moment of distraction. Creeping shadows, nightmarish demons, twisted and rotting landscape – but then again, when she considered who the artist was, it was to be expected. She frowned. _I'll never get to tease Dib about his bad artwork again…_ And suddenly, she found she no longer wanted to look at the binder. Shoving it in the backpack, Sel quickly pulled out the blueprint, cringing at her own stupidity. She shouldn't have let herself get distracted.

Kicking the backpack across the room, she angrily turned back to the computer, grabbing her cellphone and flipping it open angrily. If she could focus for five seconds, then it was an easy enough task to guide Fillmore through this. She had maps she could watch to literally keep up with him foot by foot, step by step. In fact, this was what she had to do, narrating his moves very closely for several tense minutes.

"Duck behind the green trashcan. See the security? He goes in circles. Wait until he's around the corner. Go, go, go – duck into the girls bathroom. Door always unlocked – remember that. Run to the stairs. Now, grab onto the railing and swing over to the other side. Hold on and duck low. When that officer's gone, pull yourself back up. Go up. Now, listen to me carefully, keep going onto the third floor. There's no security there. You can walk straight to the stairs above the main office. You can, but you won't. Open locker 335. It's unlocked. Now, take the tennis ball from it and throw it down the far stairs, then run like crazy back to the stairs for the main office."

Judging by the shrieks and howls of indignant security guards, her distraction plan had worked. She heard Fillmore snort once with laughter before pressing on. He saw the office, of course, and he could unlock the door himself. Slipping in like a ghost, he made his way to the large drawers that held the personal files.

"Parnassus has his under the name Leonard Riker," Sel informed him. "It's because people in the past have tried to get it. Easy ruse to see through, though. Name sounds fake."

"Says a girl named Sel," Fillmore muttered under his breath. "Aha! Got it. Write this down: 1121 Oak Avenue, in the suburb of Opportunity. Got it?"

"Got it. Now get out. Go to the Greek Mythology room, there's a low slanting roof you can climb onto. Dropping to the ground from there is safe."

"I'm on it."

Something was wrong. That was too easy, she thought to herself. Planning or not, there should've been one guard who noticed the opened door, the slightly opened drawers, the messy files, the tennis ball's obvious purpose. Biting her lip, she waited for Fillmore to call in that he'd been caught, that something had gone wrong. Instead, however, she heard dead silence, and froze. The static on the other end died, and she froze as a dull dial tone rang in her ears.

He was gone.


	11. Chapter 11

Author's Note: This fanfic is getting longer than I anticipated. I'm sorry. I just couldn't squish the plot down any tinier, and so it's ended up being pretty long by my standards. I swear, though, no matter how long this thing gets, I will never abandon this fic… Unless I get struck by lightning. Then it's Quirky Misty's problem. XD

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It had been a hot night, as all nights in Los Barros were.

Ingrid was sweltering in the heat, but she didn't care. Her hair was, in its latest incarnation, bright yellow. The bottle had actually said, to her amusement, Bright As Fuck Yellow. Her mother had laughed it up the whole ride home. Her mother had been the one who suggested the color. It was bright and happy because she was. She was always such a happy, upbeat, kindhearted woman. The color reminded Ingrid of her everytime she looked in a mirror now. She'd have to change it after she got done with this. She'd made due by slicking it back with a lot hair gel. She couldn't afford distractions.

The smells of the dark and twisted city haunted her. Homeless people trying to fan themselves with their hands, the stench of decaying dogs and cats. Roasting rats crackled and smelled deceptively inviting and she passed by a street vendor. The sidewalk in this part of town was little more than gray gravel, it was so cracked. Dirt from the unpaved roads coated everything, and yet she scarcely noticed. Her golden eyes were busily looking through the crowds to pick out the man she needed to find.

Her face drew stares and gasps, concerned Latina mothers muttering about bad parenting and doctors as she went past. The scabs were barely formed, and her sweat was tinged orange as it went down her face, picking up blood from the wounds. She was wearing a black vest to help hide the gun she had on her, but other than that she had on only jeans and black combat boots. She could run her fastest in them, and she did not indeed to let him get away. She was not going to make that mistake more than once.

There were patches of dried blood on her, people would tell police later. Her arms had scratches all over, and her left pant leg was drenched in it. Even before she'd shot anyone, she looked like hell, darkly storming through the streets, silent as a ghost and angry as a storm. She would later lie in her own retelling of events, say that she had waited a week to track down the scumbag. The truth was that in a week she would've lost any and all idea of where he was. In a week he could be anywhere in the world.

She'd made a detour to her apartment after her mother was shot. The paramedics could take care of her. In the meanwhile, Sel had no faith in the police to do anything. They didn't care that someone innocent and sweet was lying dead in the streets. They wouldn't do much more other than call it a lost cause case. And she couldn't let that happen to her mother. Not the woman who had loved her unconditionally, embracing the wacky clothing and name change as being part of who Ingrid was. She had been the most understanding person in the universe, the only one other than her uncle who'd ever really tried to hear out her side in life.

She wasn't going to end up just another statistic. There would be vengeance tonight or Ingrid would die trying to get it. There was dried blood all over her, and sticky patches where blood and sweat mixed. Her head felt like it was burning with pain. But it may as well have been a buzzing bee for all she cared. The world could be ending right now, and she wouldn't have noticed. Her mother was dead. She had died in her daughter's arms, in pain and screaming in vain for help.

The bastard who dared touch her would pay, though, because Ingrid Third had a photographic memory. She could find him. It was only a matter of time. He was white, but he spoke Spanish with that accent people in Eastern Los Barros had. He'd still have blood on him, and he wouldn't have had time to change clothes yet. She picked her way through the streets and alleys of the poor section of town, watching the faces of people she passed. _Where are you?_

Hot tears welled up in her eyes. Her mother was gone forever just because some sick freak thought it was _funny_. He hadn't even robbed them. He'd done this for the sheer hell of it. A sort of burning, righteous anger tore through her then, and when she saw him, she felt something deep inside her snap. Adrenaline slammed through her, giving her speed she never knew she possessed.

She appeared behind him out of nowhere, and he turned, startled. "You," he breathed, stunned, and then she fired the gun, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of some dramatic speech or other nonsense.

The fire shot went through his stomach, knocking him backwards. The men he'd been talking to scattered, backing up and holding their hands up. They didn't realize that to Ingrid, they may as well have not existed. The world didn't exist anymore. The only thing that she saw was him, and the blood, and the gun. She fired again, not really aiming, just angrily wanting to do something, to keep going somehow. He deserved whatever pain he got. He killed innocent bystanders, people who had never done anything to anyone, good people, honest people, her mother…

At some point, she realized she was sobbing uncontrollably, and that she was out of bullets. She was pulling a trigger on an empty gun. There was blood everywhere. Her mother was gone. The man who'd hurt her was dead. What was she supposed to do now? People were screaming, sobbing, yelling, but the didn't dare approach. She was crazy, she realized dimly. She was a crazy girl and for all they knew she might have a knife on her. They didn't dare approach. She was free to go. She could walk away from this and no one would ever catch her because the world didn't care. No one cared about her mother. No one cared about this man. No one card if she went unpunished or not.

She did so. Without righteous anger to fuel her on, there seemed to be no real reason to move. Every step was heavy and painful. Her face ached. She was drenched in cold sweat. At some point, she dropped the gun without noticing. Dimly, she stumbled home. In the future, she would never remember how long she skipped school, curled up in her bed and sleeping for days on end. She would never recall with full clarity those first few days at school where she was barely present in mind, sleepwalking through her classes without learning anything. All she knew was that after that moment, she was not real anymore.

At some point she'd dyed her hair, sick of looking at the happy, upbeat yellow that reminded her so much of her mother. She did little else but exist for a while, waiting for the day when time would heal this wound, she'd wake up and everything would be alright. Until then it was easier, safer somehow to slip into an apathetic, clipped and dry version of herself. Sel took over while the real personality, all the quirks and compassion and love that made Ingrid herself, slept. She went through life waiting for the day that she'd finally remember herself, her old, happy life, who she really was. Until then, she was merely sleep walking through her life.

It wasn't until soft chocolate-colored lips pressed against hers that the hollow defensive shell that was Sel fell away, and Ingrid Third truly woke up.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Wake up, whiner. I didn't hit you _that_ hard."

Fillmore blinked, rubbing his head. Immediately, the smell of exhaust and gasoline greeted him. Coughing, he looked around the room uneasily. There were pipes, crates, and the dim light of a single bulb. With a pang of panic, he realized he had no idea where he was. He also realized, however, that he wasn't tied up, held down or otherwise hurt. It was at this point he caught sight of his captor, and completely lost his train of thought.

"You can stop staring at me, kid. I don't do tricks." She stuck out her pale hand to him. It was alabaster white, the exact same shade as Sel's skin. _And Ingrid's,_ he thought to himself absently. "Get up."

"Gazzy?" he asked, gaping. "I thought-"

"It's a long story." She cut him off firmly, brushing a strand of her hair behind her ear. "I'm not sure Sel wants you to know everything. You're kind of wimpy." As he gaped at the idea of a 4"2, pixie-thin girl calling him names, she continued, "But anyway, you need to talk to her."

"Why me?" he asked indignantly. "You're the one who's got some explaining to do. You vanish into thin air, ruining Sel's freaking life, and now you want me to be your messenger boy? Tell me, is everyone in your family this messed up?"

"Yeah, pretty much." She shrugged, opening one squinty golden eye at him. "It's complicated. Just tell her I'm here, and so is Zim, and he's willing to help her out." Noting the way he continued to glare at her, she scowled. "What do you want? I told you, I don't know how much she trusts you. I'm not about to spin you some epic tale of awesome or anything, so get the fuck out of my basement."

"Your basement?" he blinked, looking around. "This is the school's boiler room."

"It works," Gaz said, her purple hair catching the cold blue light. "Those stupid security guys never come down here. No one does." She opened over at him, annoyed. "Now seriously, get out and go talk to my dumbass cousin. We don't have time to waste, you know."

He opened his mouth to object, only to find himself being pushed up the stairs and out the door. The very idea that a girl as short and frail looking as she was could move him at all stunned him so much he couldn't respond until it was already too late. She vanished into the darkness below, becoming just another flickering shadow in a sea of malfunctioning fluorescent lights. The flash of bright light on pale skin and dark hair made him pause.

As he crept home, he couldn't stop thinking. His mind was a whirl of disconnected pieces of information. Gaz. Someone named Zim. Dark hair and pale skin. Sel. Something wasn't right here. Things weren't adding up, and he just couldn't shake the feeling that there was something Sel wasn't telling him. But then again, every time he asked her about her past, she handed him more and more pieces of information that he'd really rather not know. Perhaps it was better that he didn't investigate this Zim guy too closely. Maybe it was better that he try not to get too involved in Gaz's life. If only he could shake this off.

It was getting harder to focus on the single goal of clearing Vallejo's name by bringing Parnassus to justice. The idea had seemed so simple at the time, and it surely would be now that they had the boy's address. Yet he couldn't shake the feeling that this whole thing was going to get more complicated before it got clearer. _No good deed goes unpunished._ Whatever wasn't right that was making him feel so off would come to surface eventually, and he wasn't sure quite what that meant for the case.

One thing that was for sure, though, was that he needed to get to bed. He had a new partner to meet tomorrow morning.


	12. Chapter 12

Author's Notes: For future reference, I'll be making my chapters a little longer from now on so there hopefully won't be so many of them. Also, I'll be trying to update at least once a week. I've got a lot of fic I want to do, but with college sucking up so much of my time and the fact that six of siblings have birthdays in September/October I'm getting a little overwhelmed. Hopefully everyone can find it in their hearts to have patience and remember that I really am trying my best, since I love this story as much as you people do.

Also, I will thank Quirky Misty not to spoil anything she figured out and PM'd me about to the other readers. The same goes for anyone else's Wild Mass Guessing in regards to the plot: if you figure something out that strikes you as too significant to be an accidental error, DO NOT blab about it in the review section. Spoiling other readers is not cool, even if done on accident.

Much love for Quirky Misty, who had the presence of mind to go the PM route instead. Oh, how I do love thee, it is as unto my love of cheese. (And I like cheese _a lot_.)

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Anza had never been so glad to be home.

He had missed every square inch of this place, from the ugly curtains to the floral bedsheets he used to despise. He had missed his mother's cooking, the sound of his father's disturbingly Santa-like laughter, even the screeching of the front steps. He collapsed onto his bed, inhaled the scent of his least favorite laundry detergent and smiled so hard it hurt. _I'm home._ In the other room, he could hear Laura explaining the situation to his parents, her voice calm and steely in a reassuring kind of way.

His old clothes had all been washed. His room was the tidiest one in the house. His video games had even been lovingly alphabetized by his mother. They had missed him. He knew the feeling; the way he'd laid awake at night wondering what they were doing cut him deeper than any knife possibly could. To be here again was like something out of a dream. Anza found himself reaching out to touch things, just to make sure that this was really happening. It was, and he found tears brewing in his eyes despite his resolve not to break down.

District Head Kinney made her presence known by clearing her throat. He turned to her and positively beamed. "Thank you," he said, for what seemed to be the hundredth time. "Thank you so much, Laura.''

She didn't smile, but the softer tone in her voice was close enough for him. "I left my number at Headquarters with your parents, along with my cell phone number. If you need me, do not hesitate to call-" She sighed as he wrapped his arms around her for the second time. "If you keep this up, people will get the wrong idea about us."

"I know, I just…" he sniffled and smiled at her. "I just want you to know I appreciate this, and I won't let you down."

"I know you won't," she said softly, her icy tone suddenly dark and angry. "I know you're innocent. I can _feel_ it." She placed a hand on his shoulder, looking him in the eyes. "You're a good man, Anza. Good luck, for whatever it's worth."

She left without another word, and departed in the vehicle she'd used to transport Anza here. He couldn't help but wonder about her. She seemed super serious, but completely sincere when she said he was innocent. Somehow Laura had looked past the trial to see the truth, and for that he was forever thankful. He wasn't sure how people here would react to him being back, he just knew he preferred anything over his former prison. Shuddering, he closed his eyes, trying to focus on the positive. He had another chance at life now, and it was time to make the best of it.

The first thing he did was call up Danny, who immediately began sobbing hysterically. In the following hour and a half in which they talked, Danny managed to tell him all those stupid little things he'd taken for granted before – who was dating who, how many sandwich machines had exploded, and how they'd taken down a toxic marshmallow counterfeiting ring. Anza felt like a burden had been lifted off his shoulders when he was told that, to be quite honest, nobody but the judge believed he was guilty.

"Tehama even got the school paper to do a huge spread on the trial and all the inconsistencies," the redhead informed him, sounding pleased. "She's so mad at Parnassus I swear sometimes I can _hear_ her glaring. She talks shit about him all the time when he's not there, and she misses everybody like crazy, especially you."

Tehama. He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply. She didn't hate him. She didn't believe all the lies and slander. He fell back onto his bed, letting out a shaky, slightly insane laugh. "Man, you have no idea how worried I was she'd-"

"Nobody believes what Malika said," Danny said firmly. "And nobody ever will." Softly, he added, "it's good to have you back, Joseph."

"It's good to be back, Danny."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sel hated the school's boiler room, the basements, and for that matter this whole place.

The cobwebs and dust had gathered thickly in these long forgotten catacombs, and quite frankly, so had the mice and bugs. It was a musty, filthy environment in which someone as small and thin as Gaz could vanish in a heartbeat. Anyone of average height, however, was going to find even walking to be a challenge after a while. Sel found herself growing increasingly frustrated with the noise level, too. The clanks of machinery and squeaking of rodents was beginning to get to her. Ever since Fillmore had told her Gaz was somwhere down here, she'd been itching to look through this maze and find her. Relieved as she was to know it had just been Gaz holding him up, on the other hand, it was _Gaz_ holding him up, which never meant anything good.

When she found them, it was as if they'd been waiting for her. Gaz sat on a pile of spare rugs and pieces of carpet. A few feet away, the incinerator roared, and the heat was unbearable. It was there, however, not for Gaz or Sel's benefit, but for Zim's. The Irken basked in the heat, undisguised and clearly pleased. If either of them were surprised to see her, they didn't show it, merely blinking up at her in mild annoyance.

Zim snickered openly when Gaz and Sel embraced; he found such Earthling displays of affection amusing at best. The two girls ignored him, as they always had. With Sel's glasses removed, the resemblance to Gaz was clear. Their eyes were the same shade of gold, and their skin was the exact same snow-white color. Zim watched them curiously. Human's appearances had always been something that fascinated him. Irkens had no relatives to resemble, after all, and thus no dramatic reuniting. These two were not usually dramatic, and so they simply looked each other as if trying to confirm the other was real. It was disturbingly intimate, and somehow the Irken got the feeling he was intruding on what these people called 'a moment'.

"Humans," Zim said after a moment, "I do not wish to interrupt your filthy Earthling bonding time, but I, the almighty _ZIM_, have more important things to do than watch you worm babies hug one another."

"No you don't," Gaz replied under her breath, but Sel gave her a warning look that clearly said 'don't start another fight with him'.

"Since Zim owes you his life," Zim continued, as if he hadn't been interrupted, "And I owe it twice now to the Dib, I will help you in your efforts to save the valley's ho."

"You mean Vallejo," Gaz corrected as Sel began to giggle.

"That is what I said, the valley's ho. That is who once ruled over the Patronizers, yes?"

"_Patrollers_," Gaz corrected over Sel's laughter. "Vallejo was head of the Patrollers when my cousin worked for them, and-"

"And now," Zim said with great flourish, "The man with an ass from planet Parn rules the Patronizers! I got it the first time you explained it!"

At this point, Gaz knew anything she had to say wouldn't be heard over Sel's hysterical laughter, so she simply sighed and shook her head and rolled her eyes skyward. This was going to be a long day.

- - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - -

Fillmore had only been stunned speechless three times in his life.

The first was when Wayne offered him a way out of his thug lifestyle. The second was when Ingrid had told him she was moving. The third was when District Patrol had come bursting through the doors. Each memory was vivid, because years as a thief, punk and Officer had made him a fast talker and a faster thinker. You had to get up pretty early in the morning to stun Cornelius Fillmore. His nerves of steel made it even harder to get one up on him. So when Fillmore stopped mid sentence, dropped his soda onto the floor and visibly gaped, speechless, _that_ was when every head in the Safety Patrol's office spun.

Joseph Anza had grown a good two inches, and his hair was long and shaggy now, the thick midnight blue locks slightly wavy. His bright blue eyes were as alive as ever. Although he was thinner than before and was sporting a colorful array of bruises everywhere, he was definitely back, and Fillmore's mind was summarily blown. Danny let out a cheerful whoop of joy, and some of the few remaining old Officers stood to greet him, but it was Tehama who got there first.

She was the toughest girl Fillmore had ever had the pleasure of working with. She had seen more blood, violence and horror than the other Officers, having early on established herself as a forensics specialist. She did not scream, she did not shriek, and she never cried. If she ever did, the reserved, snarky Officer had always reserved that for the privacy of her own home. Yet these things didn't matter right now, because as far as she was concerned there might as well have been no one else in the room. No one else was as important to her as Joseph Anza.

Karen and Joseph looked at each other, searching for the right words to say to break the silence. She reached out to touch his bruised face, fingers splaying out over the injury as if she had to touch it to confirm it was real. Their eyes locked, electric blue meeting starry black, and suddenly, as if a jolt of energy had gone through them, they both broke. Tears began to slide down Karen's cheeks freely as she embraced him tightly. His arms wrapped around her back, and he stroked her hair. The familiar touch made her bury her face in his shoulder. She was trying so hard not to cry, and everyone could see it, but no one even thought of laughing, if only because they were on the verge of tears themselves.

"You're back," she whispered. "You're here. I missed you…"

He ran a hand through her now tri-colored hair. "I missed you too," he murmured into her ear, eyes soft and loving. Fillmore, strongly reminded of the way his parents looked at each other sometimes, looked away. The moment was _painfully_ intimate.

A snide chuckle made Fillmore clench his fists and Anza's eyes turn icy cold. Parnassus barely suppressed a laugh, rolling his eyes slowly and luxuriously. Dressed in his typically overdone suit and tie, he took in the scene before him as if he was watching a particularly bad play. His slicked back golden blonde hair glistened like gold as he slowly began to clap, mocking them. The new Officers, those under his command, watched with nervous and fearful eyes. The Officers loyal to Vallejo watched with glares and clenched fists. If looks could have killed, he would have been dead twenty times over.

"How cute," he sneered, "The master has arrived late and the dogs are waiting. (1) I suppose you think being one of the old Officers makes you somehow above trivial things like scheduling and regulations?"

"The clock is five minutes fast," Fillmore, Tehama, Anza and several other people said at the same time. Parnassus frowned as a ripple of laughter went through the room.

"You're the one who should be worried about your job," a snide, cruel voice cut in. Fillmore found himself, not for the first time, gaping at Gaz's audacity. The tiny girl pushed her way through the small crowd of Officers and pointed one pale finger at Parnassus. "My friends and I have been waiting for a half hour to get applications to join. I thought you said you wanted new Officers."

"I don't see how that threatens my job-" Parnassus began, voice annoyed and rising, but Gaz cut him off.

"School rules say you're supposed to talk to us within twenty minutes of us getting in here. Think, dumbass, is thirty bigger than twenty?" Gaz said calmly and coldly, as if she were talking to a particularly dumb tree frog. When Parnassus was stunned into silence, she pulled out a calculator. "Okay, I'm only going to show you this once-"

"That will be unnecessary," the blonde boy snapped as the room burst into barely contained giggles. He gave Gaz a glare that could've frozen fire. She yawned; despite not even coming up to his chin, she was hardly intimidated by some douche in a suit. "And there is no reason to invoke regulations and school guidelines with me. Unlike my predecessor, I run a fair and clean office-" and here, Anza laughed out loud while Fillmore snorted, "- and so all I need is the names and student ID numbers of you and your… friends."

Parnassus faltered a bit at the sight of Zim. This is, for the record, basically the reaction every sentient being in the universe has to him. Standing three feet tall, with wide, disturbingly shiny purple eyes, his black hair was in an outrageous pompadour. Readers might wonder if, with time, perhaps Zim's fashion sense had improved so he wasn't so blatantly out of place. Those readers will be unsurprised to know that no, indeed, the Irken boy had gotten worse with time. Wearing a purple tuxedo top, a red cape and black skinny jeans tucked into neon green thigh high boots, Zim was the kind of person who robbed everyone of the ability to speak while instilling in them the desire to ask all kinds of questions. (Like 'are you taking your medication', for instance.)

And then Zim opened his mouth to speak.

"Greetings, Lord Ass of Parn! I am ZIM!" He screamed his name loud enough to make people wince. "I am a god of chaos, the lord of destruction, the master of all robot bees! With my determination, strength, agility, dexterity, and humility, I am here to be your tool of death and justice wherever the beloved school of Q needs me!"

"It's X," Gaz muttered, looking remarkably unperturbed by this display. "The school's name is X, Zim."

"The Lord of Parn Asses has destroyed schools R through W already?" the short boy turned to the blonde with something akin to admiration shining in his eyes. "Truly, your blood thirst knows no bounds! I will feel honored to slay the tardy in your name! Let the halls your run red with their BLOOD!"

"I only needed your _name_," Parnassus said, sounding equal parts stunned and horrified. "Leave your ID number with Officer Tehama and we'll get back to you." He turned to Sel and Gaz. Compared to Zim, the bright haired Goth girls looked completely normal and sane. "Your names are?"

"Gaz Teridu, student ID number Tuna."

"That's not a number," Parnassus pointed out, sounding annoyed. She held up her ID card, and he groaned, rubbing his face with his palm. "Fine, whatever. Number Tuna it is. And you?"

"Saeryonim Teridu," Sel said, and at the exact moment she realized her mistake, she heard Tehama gasp.

And now it was her turn to be speechless.

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(1) This is a play on Shakespeare's line 'the master arrived late, and the whores lay waiting'. Because I wanted a high-brow insult for Parnassus to use, I decided that him subtly implying Tehama is a whore would be the most IC thing I could see him doing, because no one's going to get the reference when he does so.


	13. Chapter 13

Author's Notes: College is a bitch, I'm sorry, I've got a lot on my plate right now, but I'm back on track with this fic, I promise, I just – yeah, I'm a mess right now. As is this chapter. But it'll get better/longer/more coherent later, I promise.

* * *

Tehama knew.

Tehama was furious. Tehama was short, she wasn't well muscled and she normally had a feather light touch. But fury is an incredible tonic for strength. With one hand, she hauled Sel off to the girl's bathroom, jammed the door and _threw_ Sel against the wall of a stall. It was about then that the bleached-white haired girl realized how deep in she was; she was cornered, she was in the wrong, there was no excusing her actions, and Tehama looked ready to kill.

Time had not been kind to any of Sel's friends at X, but Karen Constanza Tehama had suffered the worst of it. Her blue-black hair was up in two handle bar shaped bundles, with small strands falling to frame her face. Her eyes held none of her usual warmth. There was something off about her that Sel couldn't place until her photographic memory kicked in. Her skin – what was wrong with her skin? Her arms had splotches of bleached white that out-paled Sel Teridu, which was no mean feat. The familiar feeling of fear, that spike of worry she couldn't shake, came back to her. First Danny, now Tehama. What on Earth had been going on while Sel was away?

Tehama pinned Sel to the wall, eyes blazing. "Where. Were. You."

Sel had never before understood what Shakespeare meant by the phrase 'serene fury'. Now she understood in ways she'd really rather not. "My family moved-"

"Where. Were. You," Tehama repeated slowly, watching Sel's face like a hawk. "Where were you when Vallejo got thrown out? Where were you when Danny got shot with a nail gun? Where were you when Fillmore's new partner died?"

"Who?" Sel gasped, eyes wide.

Tehama tilted her head slightly. "He didn't tell you about Lili? Good. You don't _deserve_ to know. Ingrid Third, or Saeryonim, or whatever your damn name is, do you have even the slightest _inkling_ of the kind of shit we're all in right now? Everyone's corrupt, everyone's pissed, crime is off the fucking charts and it. Is. Your. Fault."

The white haired girl froze. Tehama released her death grip on her former friend. Until then, Ingrid hadn't realized the full extent of Tehama's rage. She wanted to back up a few steps if only she could. Unfortunately for her, she was pinned against the wall. She gaped at Tehama, watching the half-Japanese girl as if time had frozen. _Everything right is wrong again,_ Ingrid thought to herself as she watched the other girl shake with rage. _Everything bad comes crashing in_-

Tehama was in no mood for poetry references. "Once you were gone, we were screwed. Our star team was gone. You killed Fillmore, you know. You may not have taken a knife to him, but you stabbed him in the heart. You hurt him. You hurt Danny. You hurt Vallejo. And you hurt me, but I doubt you've thought about that, huh? You weren't going to come hang out with me even with your new persona on. You didn't write. You didn't even call. A postcard, Ingrid. A note. Even just a Christmas fruit basket. But no, Saeryonim Teridu doesn't have those problems, does she? She just walks out into a brand new life and everything's hunky dory. Those people you left behind, defenseless, hurt and vulnerable? Well, _fuck_ them, right? They don't matter. It doesn't matter what they have to face. Out of sight and out of mind."

Ingrid tried to say something, to whisper it wasn't true. The majo-haired girl clenched her fists so tightly her nails drew blood, and Ingrid went silent as she continued. Each word was a precision strike into her. Each accusation, every insult and every point was like a taser to the spine. If only Tehama had been mad for no reason, if only she was just a whiny friend complaining about a weekend without a call. But she wasn't. This was more serious than that, a string of truths that Ingrid could no longer deny. Tehama was right, painfully right, and Ingrid felt tears well up in her tawny eyes.

"You knew we were a team, and you left us. You knew we needed you but you didn't care. You didn't stop to tell us what was happening. You left us with no time to get a new person, no warning, a big hole in our lives out of the blue. Now you've decided to grace us with your presence once people are dead, lives have been destroyed and everyone's miserable. Well, I've got news for you Ingryonim: I will forgive but I won't forget. I hope you know you've lost my respect. And my trust, for that matter. Maybe if you'd come in here and been yourself and asked us if you could help, I'd let this fly, but I'm the Vice Junior Commissioner now."

"Karen-"

"_Tehama_," the other girl said, the ice in her voice cutting like a knife. "My friends call me Karen."

"What are you saying?" Ingrid demanded, forgetting all feigned speech patterns and pretenses, all personas and charades. "Please, don't tell me-"

"I'm telling Fillmore, I'm kicking you off the force and _I_ will manage things here. I don't know what zany plan you've concocted – you have to have one, or you wouldn't be here – but I'm going to get Anza and Fillmore and the three of _us_ are going to right what's wrong. You've done enough damage, don't you think?"

Those last words were said with such pain and betrayal that Ingrid broke. Tears formed in her eyes as her knees gave out under her. Her mind was a whirlwind of thoughts, of defenses of her innocence and simultaneous condemnation of herself. Everything was so much, so fast. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. She was supposed to get through this and then tell Fillmore, Tehama wasn't supposed to be so jaded and hurt, Danny wasn't supposed to be dead inside, no this wasn't real this couldn't be real oh dear God oh dear sweet –

She didn't realize she'd been speaking out loud until Tehama hauled her to her feet by grabbing her wrists and pulling. The sunglasses clattered to the floor, revealing amber colored eyes. For a year Tehama had known Ingrid Third and never told anyone her real eye color. It would have been juicy gossip, but Tehama had standards she held to steadfastly. Now the fact that Ingrid Third had been prescribed green color contacts would make for the basis of a long line of evidence against her. There was a mountain of explanation to be done. In the end Fillmore would know the truth, and it would be irrevocable. There could be no going back, no repairing of their relationship after this.

But Tehama was a being of mercy, first and foremost. She studied the hysterical girl in front of her, frowned, sighed, and then released her. "No." Ingrid stared, confused. "No, I won't tell Fillmore. You… you couldn't handle that right now, and neither could he. I'm not like you, Ingrid. I won't destroy people because it's easier for me. Just get your things. Pack up and leave. I never want to see you in my school again. Leave a note for Fillmore, lie like you always do. Tell him that everything's fine, you just need to leave for some generic reason. I'm sure you'll think of something. And then I want you to get out of my city." On her way out the door, Tehama paused, taking in the sobbing, deep breathing, shaking figure she had once called a friend. "You're not strong enough to do this, Ingrid. Just leave, for your own good. It's better this way, without anyone being mad at you or anyone knowing the truth. It'll be easier, on you and on him. I appreciate what you've done, but this isn't your fight."

And she left, ignoring the sobs behind her.

* * *

Ingrid had been through a lot in her life.

She'd lost her birth mother, her step mother, her sister, she'd been made fun of, beat up, ostracized, ignored, forced to move constantly, she'd had to leave her friends behind constantly, she was fairly sure she had some form of depression at this point, and now everything she'd tried to do had come crashing down all around her. And she couldn't fight it, couldn't demand to be made part of the Patrol, because Tehama was right. Tehama was always right, and she had lost so much because of Ingrid – it was hard to be angry with a woman who spoke an ever flowing and constant stream of logical truth.

Everything was this giant mess because she'd walked out on them. It was her fault. If she could have changed it, she would have. If only she had the ability to change time she'd do it all over again. She'd never leave, she'd leave with warning, she'd keep in touch, she'd… But there was no use to this train of thought, only more pain. She didn't need any more hysteria. It was just hard not to break when Tehama had shown her the suffering she'd caused. All around her people were struggling to piece their lives back together. People were trying to navigate a world of chaos because she'd decided they could handle it. She should have checked back in, she should have helped, she should have…

The thoughts roared around her like a hurricane. The world was a nightmare, and she the dream eater who had conjured it. _Ingryonim_. Loving, kind hearted Ingrid and cold, borderline schizophrenic Saeryonim. She had tried to live her life as two people, tried to switch lives. She had wanted so desperately to start over after that awful argument with Fillmore – and oh, didn't that seem petty now? If she'd only known, she'd have called his house so that the phone rang off the hook and emailed him until his inbox could hold no more. If only she'd had some idea what she was really doing at the time.

"What have I done?" she asked the empty stalls. They did not answer. "What in God's name have a I done?"

Leave, Tehama had told her. Leave this to those who know what they're doing. Those with good hearts and good intentions. Good people. Ingrid knew that Tehama was doing her a favor. She was holding back the truth so people wouldn't be hurt by the maelstrom Ingrid had conjured up all around them. She was going to fix this because she had to. Her friends were in danger. Tehama was going to make all this insanity make sense if it took everything within her and in all probability she would make it. She didn't need Ingrid. She didn't need Fillmore, truth be told. She had years of Patrol experience and her other half back. Tehama was going to save the world because the world wasn't about to save itself.

_You've done enough damage, don't you think?_ Truer words had never been spoken by one so fair and just. Literary references aside, the fact remained she had a point. Ingrid's pettiness had gotten them into this mess. Now Gaz and Zim were trapped in this too, two innocent bystanders who were trying to help someone who couldn't be helped. They were trying to fix this mess, add their creativity and intellect to the mix. And for what? So that Ingrid could lead them astray and get them hurt? So that she could fail them like she'd failed everyone else? She appreciated Zim's offer and Gaz's familial love, but they were on the wrong path. If the blind followed the blind, they would all run into a ditch.

Notes. She needed to write notes. She needed to talk to Gaz. Zim would stay because of his mission and the fact that he'd been kicked out of his last school, but Gaz needed to go home and live her normal life. Gaz needed to save herself while she still could. Then Ingrid would have to think of something to tell Fillmore. She would have to figure out something, some kind of lie or deal that would satiate him for the duration of the case. He, Anza and Tehama could go break into buildings, clear the names of innocent people and what not. Ingrid had actually done one thing right by getting Anza here; she should leave before anything got messed up on her account. Notes. She had to write them. She'd just go back to her locker, get her book bag, write something down and leave.

Her legs felt like deadweights under her. She walked in a daze towards her destination, noting the madness around her. The downtrodden faces, the protestors, the arguments. _Methinks thine chaos doth proceed thee_, indeed. Her footsteps seemed too loud, her world too bright, but she managed to stumble onward. Once she was out the door, she ran desperately to the building her locker was in, navigating the stairs, twists and turns on automatic. She hadn't even noticed the cold rain outside. She didn't notice the heat of the hallways or the way the metal felt cool against her skin. The green paint seemed to glow. The lights that once hummed seemed to roar. Sensation of touch was gone, vision obscured by hair loosed by the rain. She stared at the shadows around her, swearing blood was within them. Had the world always been this vivid? She shook slightly, throwing her coat off her like it was poisonous, smacking the weak point of her locker to force it to pop open. Her books spilled out onto the floor. _Notes…_

"Sel?"

"Fillmore," she whispered like a prayer, shutting her eyes briefly. "Cornelius."

"You wanna tell me what's going on? Tehama's mad, and she screamed at me, and you didn't come back so then I looked around for you. You're missing your math class – are you crying?"

She turned to him, and he knew. She knew. The white hair was down, not an inch longer than Ingrid's, the same texture and style. Her eyes were the same almond shape, her snub nose was the same soft shape. Her pasty skin was hers and hers alone. She stared at him, knowing she was caught, knowing that he would never forgive her, and shaking like a leaf. _I will forgive but I won't forget. I hope you know you've lost my respect._ Tehama had said it best, the hate that would soon blossom inside Fillmore. Ingrid – Saeryonim – whatever she was stared at him, tears rolling down her cheeks, dressed in a tank top and baggy pants, looking painfully thin and mutated, a freak of nature, something not entirely human. Fitting, given that she felt like a complete monster.

"I'm sorry," she gasped out before she bolted from the building like a flash of lightning. She vanished into the alleyways and passages of the school's many buildings, fleeing into the stormy night without a trace.

It would be nearly a month before he would see her again.


End file.
